Yu-Gi-Oh! Shipping One-Shot Collection
by TheRealBakura
Summary: A collection of Yu-Gi-Oh! Shipping One-Shots. Have fun, Yaoi fans, and fanfic readers. Ratings actually differ, but I'm putting T to be on the safe side. You have been warned.
1. PuzzleShipping

One would think it would sound like a crash. Maybe glass breaking. It didn't sound like that. Yugi knew. The Pharaoh left into the afterlife, and Yugi had heard the sound the minute he left. He wanted to touch lips with him, to prove how much he loved him. He wanted to beg him not to leave, to stay with him forever. He didn't, and he heard the sound.

It was said before, it didn't sound like a crash or breaking glass. It sounded like a heartbeat, but suddenly intermitted, and replaced with the sound of silence. When one is on the verge of heartbreak, their heart starts racing, if they know what's happening. When it does happen, they can't hear their heartbeat anymore, it's like their heart stopped. If they checked for a pulse, it was still there, it was the noise of it that was absent.

For days, it was that. Yugi would sleep, and before he slept, he could hear his heartbeat, pulsing steadily, calm. It would be like that after he woke up, for a few minutes. After around five or ten minutes, he couldn't hear his pulse anymore, but he felt it if he searched for it. Everyday, he prayed for it to stop. He prayed for the spirit of the Pharaoh to return to the Millennium Puzzle, and be with him. His heart would no longer be broken, it would be one large piece again, and the sudden heartbeat to silence would turn into heartbeat, forever.

But his prayers were never answered. The Pharaoh never came back. Of course, he sometimes visited Yugi, in his dreams. Yugi would be somewhere, whether it be standing in his bedroom, or laying on his bed. Sometimes he was standing around inside the Domino Museum, or wandering the deserts of Egypt. no matter where he was, every night, Yugi would talk to the Pharaoh, whom he addressed as "Yami".

The first night, he was on the bottom floor of the game shop, just sitting at one of the game tables. As he was using a deck of Solitaire cards to build a card tower, he heard a voice. "I've never seen you build a card tower before."

It scared him so much, as he was placing a card on the top, he dropped it, and the whole thing fell down. He looked around for the source of the voice, and eventually saw the Pharaoh in front of him. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in the afterlife."

"I am. I'm visiting you in your dream, Yugi."

"Maybe it would be easier if you left, and didn't come back. I'm..."

"Experiencing a heartbreak. I know."

"How did you know that?"

"i figure out a lot of things in my good time, Aibou."

"You haven't called me that..."

"Since I last saw you. I know."

"Stop finishing my sentences."

"Okay. It's just about morning, anyway. I'll see you tomorrow night, Aibou."

And Yugi had woken up. As he sat up to breathe, and contemplate what he had just seen and experienced, he heard his heartbeat, and it was suddenly muted. The sound kept replaying over in his head, the echoing thud of his heartbeat, and then seconds of silence. The shattering of his broken heart. He didn't want to listen to it anymore, but he did, every day. So was the day in Yugi's life after the Pharaoh's departure.

He asked himself every day, was it a curse? Was it a curse to have the Pharaoh to visit him every night? He didn't want it to continue any longer. Every night from the first, he had hoped the the Pharaoh wouldn't return. However, his hopes seemed to be dumb, childish wishes, as the Pharaoh came back, every night.

After the card tower at the game shop, it was the ice cream cone at the park. Then, the lyric sheets in New York. After that, the bucket of popcorn in the movie theater. The canteen in the Egyptian desert. The glass of warm milk in his bedroom. The bucket of dirty water at the Domino Museum. The coffee at the café (that one hurt). The last one Yugi remembered was the books on the bookshelf at the library.

After the last one, he wondered if anyone else had ever had a whole shelf full of books fall on top of them. Sure, it wasn't real, but all of these things actually hurt him in the dreams, and he woke up with the pain. When he had recieved scalds from the coffee in that one dream at the café, he woke up with the burns, and his grandfather had to put Vaseline on it and bandage them up. They were still, there, too, and it had been almost three weeks.

He woke up, and walked into the bathroom. He grabbed a hairbrush, but quickly put it back down, not forgetting "the incident" that had happened in eighth grade. He certainly didn't want to end up with another hairbrush stuck in his star-shape of a hairdo. Honestly, he wasn't sure if the surgeon had removed it or not. A chill went up his spine, he didn't want to think about it anymore.

He fell to the ground, breathing hard. This happened every time he stopped hearing his heartbeat, it felt like his heart had stopped going, until he felt his heart jump out of his chest. It was like it was trying to tell him, "I'm not dead, Yugi. I'm still here.", that it wasn't giving up on him while he was so young. His grandfather would've said the same thing, that he was closer to ending up under dirt than Yugi was.

Still, it terrified Yugi, to the point where he refused to go to sleep some nights. Those nights, sleep got the best of him, and he had short dreams, ones he didn't remember. All that he remembered was that the Pharaoh was there, because he always was. Sometimes, he talked about Duel Monsters, about the afterlife, about his and Yugi's friends.

Other times, he would talk about subjects that Yugi didn't want to listen to; about girls, dating, marriage, having children (was it just Yugi, or did he want to marry Mana?), love, and most of all, what life was like without one another. Yugi knew what it was like for him- pure torture, hearing the shattering of his broken heart every day- and he didn't want to hear what it was like for the Pharaoh.

It had been a long day, going to school, cooking dinner, dueling Joey (his best friend) and his grandfather. It was time for rest. He laid in the bed, closed his eyes, and fell right to sleep.

This time, he was laying on his bed, holding a mug of coffee. He decided to start sipping on it, when the voice came in. "It's nice to see you, Yugi."

He jumped, and the hot mug of coffee spilled all over his lap. He screamed in pain, and the Pharaoh threw a towel on top of him. "You'd think that you would get used to me by now."

"Well, I haven't. So, what do you want to talk about today?"

"Well, you've been asking me to stop coming into your dreams ever since I started. I was wondering if this should be the last time I do this."

"Yami."

The Pharaoh turned to look at him. He sat on the bed next to Yugi, who pulled him closer, and kissed him on the lips. He pulled back. The Pharaoh had a hand over his mouth, blushing. "Yami, I love you. Please, if you're going to do anything, come back."

"Yugi, this is the only way I can come back. I can't return to the Millennium Puzzle, like you want me to. I have to stay in the afterlife, but I can visit you in your dreams."

"There's at least one good thing about dreams," Yugi said, placing another kiss on the Pharaoh's cheek. "Anything can happen."

The bedroom vanished. Yugi and the Pharaoh were standing next to each other, at the altar, and Yugi leaned in for another kiss. As they did so, the spirits of the Egyptians from the afterlife stood up and cheered. Mana yelled from the stand, "You are now married!", and the guests roared. They lifted Yugi and the Pharaoh up into the air, and Yugi vanished.

He was awake. But, if he was awake, why did he still hear the voice? "Tomorrow," he said, "I'll return, with a son. We'll have a future together, even if it's only though dreams."

They kissed again, and they waved as the Pharaoh disappeared.

"So," Yugi said to himself, "I'm married to the love of my life, but I can only see him during my dreams. Oh, such is the day in my life, but I love it."

And, from that day on, Yugi never heard the shattering of his broken heart again. All he heard was his voice, the Pharaoh's, the voice of his actual, human son, Atem. Never again would his pulse intermit, then go silent, and never again would he feel lonely and unloved. Now, he had the Pharaoh, and that made up for everything he ever needed- and it always would.


	2. AngstShipping

**Walking there to kiss you, and nobody's there...**

Marik sat on the bench under the willow tree in the park. The sun was shining, the sky was cloudless. A breeze was running through the air, and the willow provided much shade. Marik felt the cool air on his arms, and sighed. He was waiting for Ryou. He wanted Ryou to be there.

A hour passed. Marik was still waiting there. Ryou wasn't there. Marik pulled out his cellphone. He called Ryou, but he didn't pick up. He called again. No answer. Again. Nothing. He just gave up, sending Ryou a text. He adjusted his legs and sighed out of impatience.

Another hour or two, and not even a sign of Ryou coming. He hadn't called back, and he hadn't responded to Marik's texts. What was keeping him? Well, maybe he had gotten lost. It had been years since they had lived in the town of Manifest, Kansas. Then again, he probably would've found his way eventually. Marik doubted he had lost his cellphone.

Another hour. The sun was slowly setting, and Marik's legs were falling asleep from sitting on the bench. Where could Ryou have been? All of a sudden, Marik's phone rang. He hurriedly picked it up to answer it.

It was Ryou.

He pressed the 'answer' button. "Hey, Ryou, where are...", but he was cut off.

"Go home. I'm not coming. It's not worth staying there.", Ryou said.

"But, Ryou..."

"I've moved on, Marik. Accept it, and leave."

Ryou hung up. Marik squeezed his cellphone, but put it in his pocket. He was crying the whole way to his motorcycle.

 **The smell of your perfume still stuck in the air...**

Marik stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his body. His hair was dripping wet, but he didn't bother to dry it. He just let the drops fall right to the ground. His head sagged, as he was staring at the ground, making the droplets of water appear to be tears falling speedily from his face.

Marik sat in the living room. He desperately wanted to run out to the garage to grab his motorcycle and go back, just hoping Ryou would turn up at some point. But Marik knew he never would. He would have been wasting his time if he did so. He stayed where he was. He couldn't take much more of the punishment he felt he was receiving.

But, he knew, it was Ryou's choice to stay behind and not come. It was his choice to not remain friends with Marik. Marik groaned. It wasn't fair. Ryou said he would come. He promised. Then, Marik was abandoned, for who knows what reason?

Marik walked upstairs to get dressed. He couldn't take much more of this.

 **It's hard...**

He laid down, instead. Maybe this was all a bad dream, and all he had to do was go to sleep here, and he would wake up. But then, he thought about it.

He had already felt pain. Heartbreak.

This was not a dream. It was real life. There would never be the sweet relief that he was simply sleeping on the bench, and this was only a fantasy world created by his mind. He knew that this was the real world.

Ryou still hadn't met up with him at the park in Manifest. Marik had still been abandoned by him. Ryou was still not coming back to Manifest to see Marik. Marik was still crying tears.

 **Yesterday, I thought I saw your shadow running 'round...**

Marik had been told to go outside and get some fresh air, by his own dark half. It appeared that Malik couldn't stand Marik's endless crying, whether outside or inside. In fact, Malik took over Marik's body and took him to the park, sitting him on the same bench he had been on just a few days ago.

When Marik gained control of his own body, he lost control of himself, realizing that he was in the exact same place that he had met Ryou, that Ryou had told him he was going to be having a baby, that Ryou had told him he would have to move away, that he had waited for Ryou, who called and told him that he would not be showing up.

Marik began to cry. "Malik, why did you bring me here?", he said, speaking softly to his other half.

"I'm sorry," Malik apologized, "I was trying to help."

Marik got up, and began to walk a little, down the small sidewalk that ran through the park, and into quiet, downtown Manifest. He took in a deep breath, and he could feel the difference between the fresh, cool outside air, and the hot, stuffy air inside his house. Even if he was in a place filled to the brim with overwhelming memories, it was also somewhat relaxing.

He took a few steps, and he stopped. He looked over to his left. Nothing but grassy fields. He could swear, for just a second, that had seen Ryou. His mind was playing tricks on him. He wouldn't let memories stop him from having some sort of a good time.

He had only walked a few more feet. He could swear he heard a high-pitched British voice shout his name. Either he was paranoid, schizophrenic, or his memories were taking over his ability to think. He knew Ryou wasn't coming back to Manifest. Besides, he couldn't see Ryou anywhere. He was simply hearing things.

He couldn't take it. He ran to his motorcycle. "What are you doing?", Malik asked as Marik started the engine and put on his helmet.

"I'm losing my mind, Malik," Marik said, driving off.

 **It's funny how things never change in this old town...**

Marik looked around. Manifest hadn't changed since Ryou left.. The roads hadn't been paved over, because it wasn't needed. Everybody still drove the same kind of car, and no one had moved into or out of the town. Cynthia, their neighbor across the street, still grew chrysanthemum flowers in her window box.

Marik still paid a visit to Yugi every now and then; he was the next door neighbor, and he was getting sick and sicker as time went on. His room looked more like a hospital room than an actual room, he was so terribly ill.

Marik was just glad that he wasn't visiting Yugi every day, because he would have to do almost everything for him. Yugi had someone to take care of him, but Marik didn't know who, considering he was always out of the house was Yugi called Marik to come over.

But Yugi's illness was the only change. Other than that, everything was the same. The town was still beautiful, and it hadn't lost or gained it's residents by anything other than natural occurrences- birth and death.

Except for Ryou. By Ryou moving away, the town had lost a resident, and one that was to come. It made Marik cry just thinking about it.

 **So far, from the stars...**

For nights now, Marik had been having this dream. Ryou would be standing in the park in Manifest, and have his arms open to hug Marik. Marik would run toward him, but he would fall into deep space suddenly. He was almost a few feet away from him every time it happened.

He would be floating, surrounded by the space around him. Ryou would be standing on air, looking at him. "Look at you, Marik," he would say. "Stuck in space. You're gullible. Just hold your breath."

And he would begin to suffocate as Ryou walked out of sight. Every time Marik woke up, he would cry. He felt that he was receivinga message: one that told him Ryou didn't love him anymore.

 **And I wanna tell you everything, the words I never got to say the first time 'round...**

He had written so many pages, typed up so many speeches. And not a word of them ever came out of his mouth. They were all waiting to be spoken. And, now...

They were all going to rot away.

 **And I remember everything, from when we were the children playing in this fairground...**

He was 7, and Ryou was 5. Marik was going up and down on the swings, being watched by his older sister, Ishizu. Ishizu stepped away for a second, but Marik didn't move a muscle. That was, until he started hearing crying and screaming. He got off the swing, and ran to the source of the noise.

He found a little boy with long white hair, wearing a cream colored sweater. He was stuck in a steep, slippery, deep hole, covered by a thicket. Marik pulled the thicket out of the boy's way, getting thorns all over his hands. He painfully pulled out all of the thorns, then lifted the boy out of the hole.

Unfortunately, he had twisted his ankle when he fell. The child had no parents, and was rushed to the hospital with no one to care for him once he was released from it. Marik said he would visit him every day from then on. Ishizu called Marik a hero that day, but Marik was only happy that he had made a friend.

They had been friends since then. They had been closer friends than anyone else in Manifest. Then, Ryou had to move. Life would never be the same for either of the two.

 **Wish I was there with you now...**

Marik wanted, more than anything, for Ryou to return to Manifest. But he knew that would never happen. He knew he would never drive to New York just to be turned down by Ryou again. He was stuck.

He was also friendless and alone.

 **If the whole world was watching, I'd still dance with you...**

Marik was 18. Ryou was 16. It was the year before Ryou announced that he was pregnant, and that he announced that he would be moving away. It was the High School Dance. Both boys went together as friends, and danced together as friends. At first, no one watched, then all eyes were on them.

At the beginning, Ryou thought it was peaceful, and Marik was bored. Near the end, however, both boys were terrified, and stopped dancing to stop and get a can of soda. The memory used to make Marik laugh. They were both so embarrassed, Marik drove them home on his motorcycle almost a hour before they had intended to leave.

Now, the memory made Marik cry, as did every memory about any time-whether it was good or bad- that involved Ryou.

 **Drive highways and byways to be there with you...**

He held his helmet in his hands, staring back at his reflection. Was he really going to do this? Was he going to jump on his motorcycle and drive it all the way to New York City to tell Ryou how he truly felt about their friendship?

No, he couldn't. Ryou would just send him home, anyway.

But, he had to! Ryou really needed to know how Marik felt.

But, he couldn't. That was a one-way trip, and he would be stranded somewhere in between Kansas and New York, unable to do anything but beg for spare change to live off of.

Oh, he had to! He would let Ryou know, and Marik was definite that Ryou would return with him.

Ugh, he just couldn't. What if he got into a crash on the way there and died? Ryou wouldn't know, and wouldn't have cared, anyway. Nobody would be alive to clean out Marik's apartment (Ishizu and Odion had died in a car crash almost four years ago). Yugi would have no one to take care of him when whoever was taking care of him wasn't in the apartment.

He had to, he really did! Marik knew that Ryou was the love of his life, and Ryou had to discover that.

Making decisions is hard, Marik thought. In the end, he stayed, to take care of Yugi.

 **Over and over, the only truth, everything comes back to you...**

Marik picked the ringing phone up off the side table. "Ishtar residence. How may I assist you; this is Marik."

"Could you come over, please?" It was Yugi's voice.

Marik sighed. "I'll be right over." He put the phone down.

Marik stepped out the front door. He lived in an apartment building, and Yugi was right next door, so all he had to do was step out into the hall and go to the door right next to him on the left. He went over and opened the door, bit by bit.

He found Yugi, lying in a hospital bed in front of the door. There was an IV needle in his right arm, and the stand was attached to the bed he was on. He had a nasogastric tube stuck in his nose, and he seemed pale.

"Hi, Marik," he groaned.

"You've got a feeding tube going through you? That's just awful," Marik said.

He coughed. "I know. Come on," he said, changing the subject. "There's something I need to give to you."

Yugi pressed a button on the hospital bed he was in, moving him closer to wherever he wanted to go. Marik followed in suit. They went down a hallway or two, then ended up in Yugi's room. "The person who takes care of me when you're not around... he asked me to give you this."

He handed Marik a carefully wrapped present box. Yugi's hands were shaking as he gave it to him, and he looked half-asleep. Marik cautiously took it, and carefully took off the ribbon. He took his pocket knife out, and carefully slashed the paper on the top, so it would come off as a thin sheet of bright red wrapping paper.

The package contained a photo of him and Ryou. He remembered the day that the photograph depicted, like it was yesterday.

 _"Come on, Marik! I know you can run faster than that," the white-haired eleven-year-old teased his friend._

 _The thirteen-year-old Egyptian could, indeed. So he sped up. "I'm gonna get you, Ryou!", he screamed._

 _He pounced on his friend, and they both went went rolling down the hill of bright green grass. When they came to the bottom of it, they hugged one another out of happiness._

 _Marik's phone rang. He answered it. "Hello, this is Marik."_

 _"Yes, I was notified that you were the only relative of Odion Ishtar and Ishizu Ishtar." The voice was unfamiliar._

 _"Yes, I am," Marik answered politely to the stranger on the other line._

 _"Well, they got in a car accident on the highway," the voice said, "they were in the taxicab that was hit, and they're fatally injured. We're rushing them to the hospital."_

 _Marik was sure his breathing was going crazy. "Okay, okay. Thank you." And he hung up._

 _"What happened?", Ryou asked, seemingly concerned._

 _"My siblings got in a car crash, and they could be dying!", Marik yelled._

 _Both boys rushed to the hospital._

Marik remembered the rest of it. Odion and Ishizu had died the following morning, and the funeral was the month after that. Ryou had been present for the funeral, and gave Marik so many hugs in the two weeks following that.

Marik glanced over to Yugi. "How'd he get this?"

Yugi turned away. Marik hugged him. "Oh, he's home."

Yugi must've heard a car door. Either way, Marik was instructed to leave. So, he did. "Thanks, Yugi."

He walked out the door, and into his apartment. He left the picture on the mantle above the fireplace.

 **I saw that you moved on with someone new...**

If he couldn't speak to Ryou face to face, he would try and call him again. Maybe it would work this time. But, no luck. The phone went straight to voicemail. Ryou's phone wasn't dead, though, he knew. Ryou had just denied the call. Ryou's phone was never dead.

Wait.

Footsteps in the hallway, and the sound of rolling wheels. The person who took care of Yugi was taking him out. Marik wanted to test something. He called Ryou's phone again, but there was no noise in the hallway when he did so. Yugi's mystery guardian was not Ryou.

Marik waited a few minutes to allow Yugi and his caretaker to leave the apartment building, then did so himself. He needed fresh air, so he was heading for the park.

When he got there, the only people there were Yugi, his caretaker, and himself. Yugi was only visible from behind the bench where he and his caretaker were. He was to the far left of it, but he was next entirely behind it. Actually, he appeared to be next to it. Marik smiled, and began to walk over to him.

"Hi, Yug...", but he paused.

Ryou was sitting right there, next to Yugi.

 **In that place that we met, he's got his arms around you...**

It looked like Marik was wrong. Ryou did have his phone with him, it wasn't dead, and it had two denied calls from Marik. Marik recognized the bench that Ryou was sitting on and Yugi was beside. It was the one that he and Ryou had first talked on. Sure, they hadn't really met on it, but they became friends there.

"What are you doing here?! I thought you were in New York!", Marik shouted.

"I... um... I...", Ryou stammered.

Marik screamed. He was thankful that he, Ryou, and Yugi were the only people there, or he would've attracted a lot of attention. "I CANNOT BELIEVE YOU! YOU LIED TO ME!"

"Marik, it's not what you think..."

"NO, IT IS WHAT I THINK! YOU LIED TO ME TO BE WITH YUGI!"

"He's sick!"

"THAT MAY BE TRUE, BUT THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAD TO LIE TO ME! You could've just called me, and said, 'Hey, Marik. Yugi's sick, and I want to take care of him, so I'm going to move in next door.'. That would've been fine, but YOU LIED TO ME!"

Ryou growled, and slapped himself in the face. He did it again. And again. And again. "Ryou," Yugi yelled, his voice gravelly, "don't hurt yourself, please! I don't want to see that!"

Ryou squeezed his cellphone, which was in his left hand. He was breathing hard, as if slapping himself took energy: a lot of it. "Satisfied, Marik?", he asked, tears in his eyes.

"No," he said sympathetically, "I'm not. I want you, Ryou. I want you, and I want you to not hurt yourself in the process."

Ryou hugged him. "I'm sorry."

Then, they kissed. Marik had never felt better.

 **It's hard, so hard...**

Yugi had died of sickness the following week, and both boys attended the funeral, just as they had for Odion and Ishizu. Then, they had only been friends, but now, they were dating. They loved one another. However, it was only another week after Yugi's funeral that a question popped into Marik's mind.

"The baby," Marik blurted out. "What happened to it? Where is it?"

Ryou sighed. "She was born on March 23rd. She was a sweet little baby. But she was born terribly ill, and died within five days."

He had cried, and Marik had hugged him. But whether the baby was alive or not didn't bother Marik. All he needed was love, the love that he had now. He was fine as long as he had his Ryou.

And, he did.


	3. TabloidShipping

"Mokuba! Mokuba!"

"Seto!"

He had tried, he could say that much. They were crossing the road, the sign and the lights said to 'Yield' and 'STOP', but some jerk decided to drive ahead instead of yield and/or stop.

Kaiba ran all the way to the end of the crosswalk. He had Mokuba's hand, but Mokuba's hand slipped out of his grip. Mokuba had tried to run, but he had gotten right in the way of the car's path, and was run over.

Kaiba had cried for one of the first times in his life. He held Mokuba's body in his arms, holding him up, hugging him, even though he was dead.

He had dug Mokuba's grave himself in the backyard of Kaiba Manor, and he had locked the gates. No one came near Kaiba Manor or KaibaCorp for months, and the only person Kaiba talked to other than Mokuba's grave was the undertaker.

The sad part about the funeral was that it took place on July 7th, what would've been Mokuba's 11th birthday. Kaiba cried more than ever, and didn't speak a word at the funeral. The whole of the group arrived to pay their respects: Yugi and his friends, Ishizu and her family, and even Pegasus was there. The person that felt the most grief over it, in the end, was Kaiba, and that never changed.

The particular day this story starts on is almost one year after Mokuba's death. Kaiba had locked himself inside Kaiba Manor for one year, and had tried to cut off all contact with the outside world.

He had thrown out all of his phones, but not before saying that he had changed address, to an address that didn't exist. Any mail that went there ended up in the garbage, and he didn't really care at this point. The only thing he spent his money on at this point was bouquets of flowers for Mokuba's grave, and firewood.

God, say it now, Kaiba was in a major state of depression, and it had been a year since his little brother's death. There was only one thing that could've been worse.

There was a beeping noise. "Seto? Seto, please let me in. I need to talk to you. Seto, are you there?"

Ishizu. He hadn't talked to her since the funeral, what could she want now? He didn't answer her.

"Seto? Seto, please! This is important! Seto, please!"

Her cries sounded desperate. He was trying with all his might to refrain from pressing the button to answer her.

"Seto, I'm not leaving until you answer me! Let me in! Seto, please!"

He couldn't take it anymore. He held down the button. "What, Ishizu, what?!"

Those were the only words he had said in the last two weeks. It felt good to say something, especially to yell it.

"Oh, Seto, thank god! I thought you were dead, too! Okay, could you let me in?"

"Couldn't we just talk this way? I'm not in the mood for visitors."

"Okay, smart guy, you can have it your way. Listen, whatever you do, don't visit Mokuba's grave. In fact, you'll be safer if you move out of Kaiba Manor. Please, come out of there."

"Ishizu, what's going on?"

"Spirits! If you visit Mokuba's grave, you'll be visited by spirits!"

"Oh, I'm so scared, it's the Ghosts of Christmas!"

"Shut up, this is serious! Seto, you need to get out of there! You can stay with me until you get a new home, just please, please, get out of there! I don't want to see you haunted! You'll get hurt!"

"Listen, Ishizu. My brother is buried here, and I need to stay here for him. I'm not moving out. I worked hard for this house. Besides, no one would buy the house if they knew Mokuba was buried anywhere near the manor. I'm staying here."

"Seto, no! Seto, don't! Seto, please, move out! You can't stay...!"

He grabbed a hammer from nearby, and smashed the control panel, so he didn't have to listen to Ishizu's voice anymore. He watched the remaining fragments of the screen, watching her run off in tears.

"She shouldn't be crying. What does anyone care?"

He sat back down. There was a little voice in his head, telling him _visit Mokuba. Visit Mokuba._

He did. He pulled a dandelion from the yard and placed it on the grave. He heard whispers.

 _You killed him. You blame yourself. You want to die. You deserve to die. You're insane. You're a crazed lunatic. You don't deserve anything. You deserve to die._

The voices were getting to him. He saw the figures of his adoptive father, Gozaburo Kaiba and his older adoptive brother, Noah Kaiba, right next to him.

 _You want to commit suicide. You deserve to die. You're a crazed lunatic. You don't deserve anything._

Noah's ghost handed Kaiba a dagger. Kaiba looked at it, with notches in it, with pinkish stains in areas.

 _You're going to stab yourself. You're going to stab yourself. You're going to stab yourself._

Kaiba took the side of the dagger, and made two large slits across his wrists. He groaned in pain as Noah and Gozaburo laughed.

Ishizu watched in torture from the outside of the fence. "Seto, no!"

It was too late. She watched as Kaiba fell to the ground, and Noah and Gozaburo started laughing almost as hard as possible.

"Seto...!"

She watched in both horror and tranquility as she watched Kaiba walk down the sidewalk, with Mokuba at his side. They laughed and talked, ignoring the crying Ishizu behind them. Ishizu smiled through her tears as she saw her dear, sweet Seto pick up his little brother, put him on his back, and carry him away.

"He's in a better place, now," Ishizu attempted to convince herself.

The two figures disappeared from her vision. She put her hands over her face, and cried for her love, all the while.


	4. ControlShipping

"Honey, I'm ~hic~ a little ~hic~ drunk. Could you ~hic~ come and pick me ~hic~ up?", Noah asked, pounding his fist on the counter every time his voice leaped.

The voice on the other end of the phone was tearing up. "Are you ~hic~ crying?", Noah asked.

Marik nodded, although Noah couldn't see it. "You never call me. Ever. And, you called me 'honey', I feel better than I normally do."

Noah let out a loose hiccup. "Please ~hic~, just pick me ~hic~ up. If I don't ~hic~ go back to normal to~hic~morrow, I won't be able to ~hic~ go to work in the ~hic~ morning."

Marik hung up, and walked to the foyer. He grabbed his motorcycle helmet, and walked out. As he was about to leap onto the moped, someone put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"And, just where do you think you're going?", Bakura asked.

Marik sighed. "If you must know, Bakura, I'm headed downtown. I'll be back in an hour or so."

"Downtown," Bakura said, questioningly, "why? The only things you really find there are bars and restaurants. What use would you have for going downtown? You only eat home cooked food, and you don't drink."

"I'm picking up a friend," Marik answered, resisting the urge to throw his helmet at Bakura's head, "is that bad?"

"Depends on the friend," Bakura said.

Marik didn't answer, just put on his helmet, and started the motor. Bakura quickly jumped onto the back of the bike, as Marik drove off. "You could've, at least, stayed home! Now, someone will have to walk home," Marik yelled, "and it's going to be you!"

Bakura smiled. "No, your little friend will get the boot off the bike."

"He's drunk, right now! Do you want him to end up dead?!", Marik shouted.

Bakura didn't answer, he merely smiled. Marik stopped in front of a small building, parking the motorcycle. He forced Bakura to stay outside, commanding him to stay where he was.

His big threat was that they would no longer share a bed, which horrified Bakura, to the point where he decided to duct tape himself to the seat of the motorcycle. Marik rolled his eyes as he slowly walked into the bar.

No eyes focused on him at all. The first thing Marik noticed was someone sitting on a bar stool, with a head full of turquoise-colored hair.

"Noah!", Marik called out, despite the fact he was only a few feet away.

Noah slowly raised his head, and looked to his right side. Upon seeing Marik, he smiled, but quickly started to faint. Marik rushed to him, and caught him before he fell to the ground.

"He went a little overboard," the bartender said, cleaning a glass as he talked to Marik, his back turned, "After he called you, he ordered more whiskey. It wasn't a shot, either, it was a whole eight-ounce glass. After that, vodka, and he had the same serving as the whiskey.

"We're not allowed to deny a customer what they want, as long as they're at least 21 years old. I kept warning him, 'you might not want to do that', every time I handed him something, but he told me 'relax, I know what I'm doing'. He didn't, by a long shot."

Marik lifted Noah onto his back. "Yeah, the limit just doesn't exist with him. Thanks."

The bartender nodded. "Oh, and Marik?"

Marik turned around, in shock that this kid (well, kid compared to him) knew his name despite the fact he had never said it.

"Just know, lovers got to look out for each other. Next time, I'd suggest coming with him if there's even a chance he might go downtown. Don't let my brother get drunk again."

Something clicked in Marik's mind. "Brother? Mokuba!"

He was gone, he had vanished. "He's not my lover," Marik muttered, offended.

* * *

"Noah," Mokuba said, running a brush through his brother's hair, "why did you get drunk last night?"

Noah was still getting over the overwhelming amount of alcohol in his body. "Are you implying ~hic~, that I had a reason ~hic~ behind it?"

Mokuba nodded. "You would never get drunk to get drunk."

"Yeah," Noah admitted, as Mokuba ran the brush through his bangs, "I just wanted Marik to ~hic~ take me home."

"You like him," Mokuba informed Noah.

Noah laughed at this statement. "I guess you're right, Mokuba. Seto would ~hic~ kill me if he knew."

"He probably already does," Mokuba joked.

Both boys let out a hearty laugh, unaware of what was going on elsewhere in the house.

"He most certainly does, Mokuba," Seto Kaiba said from the control room. "And Noah's going to be in trouble, I don't care if he's older than me. He took my love once, and he's not going to do it again. Poor Marik misidentified the bartender, I'm afraid."

Kaiba chuckled.


	5. TenderShipping

_**A smile on my face, in spite of the pain...**_

Ryou felt a splash of water come up into his face. His expression was unamused as he pulled his hair out of his face and saw Bakura in front of him. Bakura was transparent, but visible, as he always was.

Bakura was a ghost. Ryou was flesh and blood. When Ryou felt a chill go up his spine, or felt really hot and started sweating, Bakura, who had been dead for 5000 years, didn't truly understand, and couldn't help him, being a ghost. Bakura had a passion to understand, but he never would.

Ryou was sweet. He was one of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. He was an honest, British-accented, game loving, smart kid with a bizzare secret.

Bakura was practically Ryou's polar opposite. When he was alive, he had killed many people, and had almost killed all of Egypt, his home. All of this just to get to the Pharaoh. He shared Ryou's passion for games, that much was true, but that had to be the only thing the two had in common, personality wise. The two were connected by the Millennium Ring. It was made out of gold, an ancient artifact from Egypt. Bakura's soul, his ghost, was trapped in there, and Ryou could interact with him. Of course, it wasn't very fun having him around.

Ryou could build. Bakura could destroy. Ryou could love. Bakura could hate. Ryou could keep quiet. Bakura could be as loud as he possibly wanted.

The two were polar opposites, and it was proven by the aforementioned event that occurred in the bath. Ryou was calm, feeling well, and Bakura decided to ruin it and make Ryou feel as bad as he did by splashing cold water into his face. Bakura didn't even notice the skin on Ryou's back raise.

 _ **Never to falter, never to wane...**_

Ryou ran a brush through his long, silvery-white hair. Even when it wasn't soaking wet, it reached the middle of his back, and when it was, it went past his back, and down to his buttocks. You could've passed him off as a girl with hair like that, and Ryou was pretty sure that Bakura would want to stuff him in a dress, just to mess with him.

Ryou stroked the towel over the surface of his hair again, to make sure it got dry. Bakura came up behind him, also clothingless, for whatever reason. He hadn't been in the bathtub, and if he had, he wouldn't have gotten wet, being a ghost. He put his hand on top of Ryou's, and Ryou started to feel uneasy.

"Don't you have something better to do than," Ryou paused to breathe, shivering, "giving me chills?"

Bakura shook his head. He didn't talk much, either, and when he did, it was normally a wave of fury over whoever he was talking to. He had never said words calmly, as least, not that Ryou knew of.

"Well, if you're trying to have sex with me, I'm not going into that. I'm not gay, I'm just British," Ryou told him.

Bakura spoke, for once. "And, I'm not British, I'm just gay."

He had that wicked smile on his face. Ryou had seen it before. That's the smile he had on his face before he killed anyone, before he robbed something, before he hurt someone. Ryou tried not to freak out, but rather took in a deep breath and let it out again.

"Ha, ha, hilarious," Ryou said, standing up and taking the towel off his head. He left on the towel around his body, although, Bakura would be able to see his buttocks if he were to turn his back.

Bakura sighed. "How's the burn treating you?", he asked.

"Fine," Ryou said, wrapping the side of the towel around his left arm, "the Vaseline is healing it, so..."

"I'm s... sore...sar...", Bakura couldn't bear to say it.

Ryou put a hand up to quiet him. "It's quite alright. I'm used to the countless injuries by now."

Three weeks beforehand, Bakura had developed a temper towards someone (Ryou wasn't sure who, but had a good idea of it), and took it out on Ryou. He said he wanted to burn that person, and settled for the innocent teenager before him.

He had taken a match, and held it up against Ryou's skin. It had started to burn him, melting the flesh away, and Ryou had begged Bakura to stop, tears in his eyes of pain. But Bakura remained holding that match over Ryou's forearm.

By the time the match had gone out (of it's own accord), Ryou's injury was worse than any Bakura himself had ever seen. The area without flesh expanded to the back of his arm, and would've melted the whole thing if the match had stayed alive much longer.

It looked like raw meat, really. The steak that had come freshly out of the package, it looked like that. Except, after a few minutes of not being exposed to extreme heat, the injury had started to bleed tremendously, to the point where Ryou fainted of blood loss.

Bakura had neglected to take Ryou to a doctor, instead, fixing the injury himself, and he had done a marvelous job for one who would cause so much damage. The wound was cleaned and bandaged up, and Bakura never forgot to change the bandages, daily.

Now, it had been three weeks since Ryou had received the injury, but the injury was so severe that the bandages still needed to be changed daily. Both Ryou and Bakura had regrets from that event. The latter had regrets of causing it, which he should have, and the former had regrets of existing.

The reason he wished he didn't exist was so Bakura could learn to control his anger, which he might have done better if there wasn't someone there to take is anger out on.

 _ **I can't let you see what goes on in my head...**_

Ryou took off the old bandage, which was blood spattered. Bakura rubbed Vaseline onto the gaping hole of an injury, causing slight burns (Ryou said they hurt worse than the match), which quickly faded.

He then placed two large Band-Aids onto the hole to conceal it, afterwards, wrapping gauze around it to keep the bandages down. He cut off a small strip of medical tape, using his left hand and mouth (his right hand was holding down the gauze), and covered the gauze with it to keep it closed.

The two went through this daily, they had treated it like a chore for the past three weeks, and they had a good chance of going through it for another two or three. Ryou felt both pain and sorrow every time the bandages were changed, because it reminded him of how much he didn't want to exist, how he was just another chore in the life of Bakura.

"Thank you," Ryou said, like he did every morning they were finished.

"Don't mention it," Bakura said, like always. "Seriously, don't."

That last bit was new. Was this ever-so-serious Bakura, trying to make a joke? Either way, it was funny to Ryou, and he let out a small laugh and showed a smile before standing up and walking away.

Bakura didn't follow him, he just stayed on his knees and stared out into space. He had a hand under his chin, his arm propped up by his elbow, which was situated on his right knee. Ryou didn't really seem to care, and as he ran his hands back through his hair (to a dancer, it would seem like he was finishing up a Bollywood Dance move), he ended up stopping halfway down, and staring into deep space, too.

When the term "deep space" is used here, it's somewhat literal. The ceiling of the room the two were in (Ryou called it the Traditional Room, due to the fact that the room was set up like a room used for traditional Japanese spirit ritual) was made out of lenses, the ones used in telescopes.

If one was to look out at the ceiling, they would get a glance at the stars. The room was Ryou's favorite for that reason; he had always considered the stars fascinating, in one way or another.

Bakura didn't truly find it interesting, as Ryou did. He just found it nice to look at, otherwise, a waste of his time. One morning, he had stopped to look up, and didn't stop staring until dinner, which was late at a 7:00pm time. Ryou had told Bakura that he hadn't blinked the whole time around, but Bakura told him that he was exaggerating.

Ryou heard a clicking noise, distracting him from staring up through the stars. He was alarmed, unsure of what made the noise. When he heard it again, he jumped in fright, and looked toward the air vent. He sighed in relief as he saw the cat, Gingersnap, holding a mouse in her mouth: a dead mouse.

Gingersnap was a recent addition to Ryou's family, Bakura had gotten her for Ryou only two weeks prior to that day.

"You need a friend who won't try their best to burn you," Bakura had said.

Ryou had scoffed at the comment, but instantly fell in love with the kitten. He named her Gingersnap for her fur, which was a shade of bright orange that Ryou adored. He called her Ginger or Ginny more than Gingersnap, he would only call her by full name to reprimand her, which he only had to do once, and exactly why is not important.

"Come here, Ginger," he said, in a sweet, quiet, and calm voice, using his hands to gesture for her to come to him.

She had been well trained within two weeks, and she ran right to him. He got onto his knees, and when the kitten got to him, he scooped her up into his arms, tickling her little belly, causing purring noises to come out of her mouth.

He put her down, and she ran onto the lap of the unsuspecting Bakura, who picked her up, threw her down, and ran away. Gingersnap ran towards Ryou, who picked her up in conern.

"Hey! Be nice!", Ryou yelled after Bakura.

He put Gingersnap down, and she ran back towards the air vent, most likely to look for more mice. Ryou ran after Bakura, who was already en route to the kitchen. He had his back turned to Ryou.

"No more games! Turn around, so we can talk!", Ryou shouted.

Bakura did turn around. He was holding a knife in his hand, and he quickly grabbed Ryou by the collar of his shirt. He sliced the collar, which was stitched together, connected, and it was no longer part of the shirt.

Bakura made swift strikes across Ryou's torso, causing so many slashes in the shirt, Ryou could barely recognize it as clothing. He slipped it off and it landed in a pile of shreds on the floor.

He ran away, shirtless. Bakura chased after him, eventually cornering him on the living room wall. Ryou quickly discovered a cold, flat blade of metal on his shoulder.

"It doesn't have to be this way, Bakura," Ryou said, resisting the urge to fight back, "just put the knife away, and we can talk this... out!"

He screamed in pain, as when he was trying to speak, Bakura had struck with the knife, stabbing Ryou's left shoulder. Bakura seemed to have no shock as to what he had done, and did it again. And again. And again.

Every time he struck, he struck somewhere different. First, the shoulder on his left side. Second, the crook of his left arm. Next, he got the palm of his left hand. After that, he stabbed him in the right shoulder, then proceded with the crook of his right arm and the palm of his right hand. After that, he got him in the legs, under his kneecaps, and ended with his feet.

He fell to his knees, as did Ryou. Bakura fell out of exhaustion from the sudden, quick movements of the stabbing. Ryou fell from injury and blood loss. Bakura looked up from the ground, to Ryou, who was laying in a heap on the floor. He dropped the knife in shock, and lifted Ryou into his arms.

"Ryou! Oh, god, Ryou! Speak to me!", he said, holding him tightly.

Ryou moaned, and slowly moved his head to the side so that Bakura could see his expression. He was smiling, for some odd reason, but his eyes were watery, like he was about to cry.

Ryou put a hand on Bakura's wrist. He had a strong, tight grip on it, but his grip quickly loosened, and his hand slipped down, onto the ground. Bakura gasped, and lifted Ryou's head higher. He put two fingers the side of Ryou's neck, and felt a steady beat.

He let out a sigh of relief. He picked up Ryou and walked off. He noticed Gingersnap at his feet, and quickly scooped her up to sit onto Ryou. He heard her making little whimpering noises as he laid Ryou down on the floor of the Traditional Room. Blood poured out from his multiple stab wounds and onto the floor. He was soon laying in a pool of blood, Gingersnap at his feet.

Bakura grabbed gauze and bandages, and started wrapping them around Ryou's stab wounds. He grabbed towels and placed them under Ryou. To top all of it off, he brought a pillow and blanket, and let Ryou sleep in the Traditional Room, allowing Ryou to sleep under the stars that night.

 _ **If you had a peek, you might want me dead...**_

Ryou slowly opened his eyes. He was laying on bright red towels, covered by a dark brown comforter. There was a pillow beneath his head, and next to that pillow, a heart-shaped box. He picked it up. There was a note on top.

 **To my beloved Ryou-**

 **I am sorry for the trouble, and injuries, that I have caused you. I have not moved out entirely, but I am packing my things. I have kept the house clean during the time you have been unconscious, and Gingersnap has taken care of our pest problem. I think you are able to take care of the house in my permanent absence.**

 **Sincerely, Bakura**

 **P.S.: I'll send you a letter after a few days. I'll give you my address so you can send letters to me.**

Ryou lifted the lid of the box. Caramel Pecan Clusters; his favorite. It looked like Bakura was leaving soon.

Ryou heard the starting of a motorcycle engine. He ran to his room, which was right outside the Traditional Room, and looked out the window. Bakura was on his motorcycle, helmet on his head.

Bakura's friend, Marik, was outside, next to him. "Bakura, don't go! Ryou needs you!"

He adjusted his right mirror. "Listen, in a world where I'm the bad guy, I can't be the Guardian Angel."

Ryou opened the window. "BAKURA! STOP!", he yelled.

Bakura looked at him, paused for a minute, waved, and drove off. Both Marik's and Ryou's hair flew up from the exhaust fumes as Bakura sped off.

"BAKURA! WAIT!", Ryou yelled after him, extending a hand out to him.

"It's too late," Marik told him, "he's long gone."

Ryou shut the window, and ran off with tears in his eyes. He ignored the sharp pains in his legs and on the soles of his feet, for that pain was only a poke compared to the pain in his heart.

 _ **For now I will hide, behind my façade...**_

Ryou had been sitting on the couch for hours, his legs folded. His legs were numb from the position he kept them in, but he barely noticed. He had his fingers crossed over one another, his thumbs meeting in an archway above his palms and crossed fingers.

As he took a deep breath out in serenity, he heard a knock on the door, causing him to fall off the couch in fright. He hit his head on the hard stone floor, and moaned.

"Come in, Teddy," he yelled, his voice strained out of pain.

The door flew open, and a girl walked through it. This girl was Rebecca "Teddy" Solomon, a housekeeper Marik sent to Ryou's house after Bakura's departure; almost three months from then.

She was known for her simple style, which allowed Marik to attempt to become friends with her in the long run. She dressed simple, although she would sometimes touch it up with a pin or headband.

Today, she had her hair, bangs colored lavender with the rest colored violet, which reached her ankles, down normally. She was wearing a sky blue dress, with a lime green flower pin on her (flat) chest. Her shoes were like black ballet shoes, but they were actually just flats. Instead of wearing pants under her dress, she wore dark blue shorts which just went past the skirt, and long white socks. She was also wearing a light grey jacket on top, as it was early autumn.

Marik called her a maidservant, but Ryou considered her a friend, rather than a slave. In his eyes, she was a person that you could always rely on, and would be there when you needed her. Of course, they were in a relationship, so he was denying the truth.

Teddy sat the grocery bags down on the table, and helped Ryou to his feet. He sighed as Teddy helped him sit on the couch. Teddy sat next to him, and put an arm around him. He leaned into her, and she kissed the top of his head. Tears started flowing down his face, and they fell right onto Teddy's dress.

"Ryou, honey," she said, with that sweet, sugary voice of hers, "what, now?"

He took in a deep breath. "Bakura. I still miss him."

Teddy sighed, in the same depressing manner Ryou had before. "You should really forget about one another," she pulled three envelopes out of her jacket pocket, and handed a small one to Ryou. "But, he never forgot you."

Ryou accepted the letter from Teddy's hand. He noticed a slit in the top, most likely where Teddy had opened it for him. He pulled out the paper inside.

 **Dear Ryou,**

 **If you are keeping track, this is the second letter I have sent you. On the back of the letter you sent me, there was another message, sent from "loyal servant, Rebecca Solomon". Is she living with you, now? I haven't heard from her in a while, let me know how she's doing. Anyway, you know that I want to come back, but there are two problems with that.**

 **1- It was made pretty clear that I was a danger to you, based on the burn and multiple stab wounds. Although, I am glad that the burn fully healed. I thought it would never.**

 **2- You don't want me to come back. You said it in your last letter, "I still want to talk with you, but I would prefer if you stayed out of my house, after the injuries you have caused me". So, I have to stay where I stand.**

 **Well, faretheewell, Ryou.**

 **Ningen no seishin wa subarashiku, kare no kōdō wa ikani yakkaidearu ka**

 **Love (and you know I mean it), Bakura**

"Ningen no seishin wa subarashiku, kare no kōdō wa ikani yakkaidearu ka. What does it mean, Ryou?", Teddy asked.

Ryou pulled the letter back, holding it against his chest his fright. "Were you reading over my shoulder?!"

Teddy nodded. Ryou scoffed. Teddy had evaded his privacy, something he had warned her not to do since the day she had arrived. She had been good about it with other things, but she always read the letters.

Those, Ryou cared about most of all, and thought that if she was to read them, she might as well do so on the way back from wherever she went. Anywhere but over his shoulder.

He sighed. "The spirit of man is great, how puny are his deeds."

"Is that a quote? I don't think something that sophisticated would actually be Bakura's. I knew him, he couldn't really come up with something like that.", Teddy said in response.

Ryou nodded, agreeing. "It was from a book he read once. Actually, let me put it this way. He's an avid reader, but not an avid writer, so he throws book quotes at me all the time," Ryou explained. "It was in German, that quote. The book translated it into English for him, but he put it here in Japanese. It's like a second language to us."

Teddy nodded. She reached into the grocery bags, and pulled out everything to sit on the table. Ryou slowly turned his head to stare. A jar of tomato sauce, spaghetti noodles, a small plastic container with basil in it, a bottle of caramel topping for ice cream, a bag of halved pecans, and a chocolate bar.

Teddy saw him looking upon the table. "I'm making your favorite, tonight. I know you love spaghetti, and I'm adding in a dessert..."

Ryou interuppted her. "Caramel pecan clusters!"

He had himself raised up over the back of the couch, then he slowly slunk back down onto the cushions, ending up in a laying down position. He started crying, and this time, he didn't have a shoulder to cry on.

Before Bakura had left, he had gotten Ryou a box of those exact same chocolates. Ryou had opened the box, sure, but he didn't eat a single one, not in the three months he had them.

He had promised not to eat a single one until Bakura came back, so when he did, they could share them. But it was definite that Bakura was not coming back, "I have to stay where I stand.", spoke for itself.

Ryou took in a deep breath, sat up, and let out that breath. He stood, and walked off.

"I'm going to go take a bath," Ryou yelled.

"Okay, just be out in time for dinner!", Teddy yelled back.

Ryou smiled. He ran to the closet next to the bathroom, grabbed towels, and he was off. He started the water, hung his towels on the hook, checked that his robe was on the other hook, and stripped down.

He put his left foot in the water, and his right foot quickly followed. His feet started to burn, but quickly melded into relief. His feet had been freezing cold seconds before, but now they were warm, thanks to the water.

He sat down. He leaned back, getting his hair wet with the water coming out of the faucet. As he leaned his head forward, he let out a deep sigh. Just three months before, he had been doing this same thing, and Bakura had splashed water in his face. He sat there for a few more minutes, but couldn't stand the flooding memories of Bakura coming back to him. He dried off, and walked into his bedroom.

He sat against the ladder of his bunk bed (back when Bakura lived with him, Ryou had the bottom bunk, and Bakura slept on the top. Teddy would sleep on the top bunk in Bakura's absence), still covered by only his towels. He grabbed his hairbrush off his desk, and started brushing his hair.

He remembered Bakura coming up behind him, unclothed, just about three months ago. He had thought it offensive and inappropriate at the time, but now cried over it, for it was another memory of Bakura.

He put on his shirt and pants, another pair of jeans and a blue-and-white striped shirt. The shirt reminded him of two things; when he had denied Bakura's attention and gotten dressed, and when Bakura had repeatedly stabbed him with a knife in various areas of his body, causing his blood to pool out, putting him in a coma. The last one, despite what one would think, was the one that made him feel the worst, it was the one that caused tears to fall out of his eyes.

He cried at that memory because it triggered the memory of Bakura leaving: the one that broke his heart the most. He couldn't take it anymore.

He took out a pen, and scribbled words on a piece of paper. He opened the window, lifting the screen, but didn't leave before taping the paper to the door. It said;

 **Left to get something, be back in a few hours.**

 **Love, Ryou**

He closed the screen of the window, but not the actual glass. He hopped onto his bicycle, and pedaled off. He had the envelope with Bakura's address on it in his back pocket, so he knew where to go.

 _ **Behind the mask that I have made...**_

He had biked almost an hour of the way there, when he decided to stop and get a little bite to eat (he had missed Teddy's cooking tonight, he deserved something), and when he came out, his bike was gone. He would have to walk the rest of the way there, which was almost two hours.

He had finally made it. He was at Bakura's house. He gulped, and knocked quickly, one-two-three. The door was answered, but Marik was there, instead.

"Marik," Ryou said, surprised to see him there. "Where's Bakura?"

"He's not here," Marik answered, "but he'll be back in a few hours. You can wait and come in, if you want. I'll call, and let him know you're here."

Ryou walked in, surveying the house. He had walked into the living room, which was grand on its own. It had a crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling, which had a pearl color. The floor was wood, but it was treated, and seemingly coated. It was cherry wood, which complemented the oak walls, also treated and coated.

The floor was recently polished, even in his sneakers, Ryou was sliding across it. Marik stepped into the living room, opening a sliding glass door, which seemed to have the kitchen and dining room on the other side.

He was holding a pair of wooden sandals in his hand. He walked over, and handed them to Ryou. "We have to wear these, or we'll break our spines and skulls."

Ryou smiled, and slipped them on. The flat, sandalwood... sandals guarded him from sliding across the floor like he was wearing laced skates on a blade, in an arena frozen over.

There was a knock on the door. Marik answered it, and Ryou couldn't see who was at the door. Marik grabbed a pair of the wooden sandals out from under the lamp next to the door, and handed them to Bakura as he walked in the door.

Bakura?

Ryou ran over to the door, and tackled Bakura. He hugged him tight. Bakura shoved him to the side, stood up, and walked away. Ryou stood up, himself, and stomped a foot on the floor. Marik and Bakura turned their heads to look at him.

"I biked three miles, and walked seven miles to get here," he yelled, "And you decide to wipe me away like a crumb on your shirt!"

He walked up to Bakura, stomping his feet every step. Marik held onto the wall but Bakura stayed firm.

Bakura grabbed Ryou, and lifted him by the collar of his shirt. "I'm not scared of you," he said, "but you should be scared of me."

He threw Ryou across the room, sending him sliding across the floor on his stomach and face. His head hit the side table next to the couch, and knocked it over. He attempted to flip himself over, and was successful, but he did it at the wrong time, as the back of his head crashed into the wall only seconds afterward.

He moaned. He had peripheral vision at this point, but could see a big grin on Bakura's face as he walked off. Marik ran over to Ryou, and helped him to his feet.

"'Bakura!", Marik shouted.

Marik quickly waved a hand in front of Ryou's face. No reaction.

"I think you made him lose his vision!", Marik yelled.

Ryou blinked once. Twice. He could see again.

"I'm fine," Ryou said, brushing dust off of his pants, "I'll just go, leave him alone."

Ryou walked out the door, Marik in anger (at Bakura, of course), and Bakura in happiness. Ryou walked a few yards away from the house, when it started to rain. It was coming down hard, and he was wearing short sleeves, with no jacket anywhere.

He crossed his arms, and put his hands on the opposite arm. He started running faster. "Gosh, I'm glad I'm alone," he muttered. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck..."

 _ **Until such a time, that I can be free...**_

Ryou walked in the door, soaking wet. Teddy walked over, and put a towel on his head. Strangely enough, the towel was already wet, which it shouldn't have been. "That's the last time either of you ride a bike in the pouring rain," she said.

Either of you? Was there more than Ryou and Teddy in the house?

"Bakura came over," Teddy said. "Said Marik wasn't feeling well. Poor thing."

She walked into the kitchen, and put a mound of spaghetti on a plate, and topped it with sauce. She set it on the table in the seat next to Bakura. When Ryou realized where his plate had been placed, his flesh started to crawl. Nevertheless, he sat down. Instead of starting a conversation with Bakura, Ryou just began to eat, trying to ignore the man beside him.

"Hi," Bakura whispered, looking in Ryou's general direction.

Ryou looked over before going back to his plate. All Ryou wanted to do was eat his dinner, but that task was proving itself to be impossible.

"Hi," Bakura said, a little louder.

More looking, more eating, more impossible-ness.

"HEY!"

Bakura had stood up and pounded his fists on the table. Ryou had gotten frightened, so frightened, that he jumped right out of his chair and onto the floor.

"Why are you ignoring me? I came back for you!"

Ryou couldn't take it anymore. He stood up and took a few steps closer to Bakura. "Excuse me? You threw me across the room, you told me to go away! You got happy when you knew I was hurt, and you most certainly seemed to care about Marik's safety!"

Bakura got red in the face. Ryou kept talking. "Yeah, don't think I didn't see that! When you tossed me, you angled me so that, when I came flying, and the table came crashing down, it wouldn't hit Marik! I'm sure, if he wasn't in there, you could've gotten in a better throw! So, Bakura, do you have a sweet spot for Marik? Is he the person you want to cuddle up with you at night, to kiss you when you feel bad, to love you when you need loved, to..."

Bakura couldn't take Ryou's endless taunting anymore. He had put his hands around Ryou's neck, and clasped them tight. "You're gonna take back what you said," he told him, tears in his eyes.

"Please, Bakura," Ryou said, his voice strained. "I love you, you know that?"

Bakura's grip loosened, as he was in shock. "What?"

"All this time, Bakura, I loved you. I knew I loved you," Ryou said, now able to breathe. "During the frigid winter months, where it feels like I might freeze, you've always been there to warm me. During the lukewarm spring days, the days where I feel lonely, you've always been the wind beneath my wings. During the blazing hot summer, when I feel like I can't do much of anything, you're always there to help me. And, during the chilly autumn, when everything is falling apart, you're always been there to fit my pieces back together again.

"Do you see it, Bakura? I love you, and I want you to be with me. My question is, do you love me?"

He looked at Ryou, the tears in his eyes no longer existant. He took his hands off of Ryou's neck, and put them around his torso. "Of course!"

And they both leaned into one another, and kissed. Teddy watched from afar, smiling. Still, a wave of passion went through her. Marik hadn't come to visit, and she wanted to see him. As the two boys kissed next to the doorway, Teddy ran out, taking a motorbike (Bakura's motorbike) ride to Bakura's house, where Marik would be waiting for her.

 _ **And you all may know the real, one me.**_

Bakura stood on the balcony, staring out at the ocean. He took in a deep breath of sweet, salty air. Ryou stood behind him, holding Aria in his arms. Bakura turned around to see his husband and daughter, and took Aria out of her father's arms and into his.

"So, how is she going to react? We'll have to tell her one day that she's adopted, that we're not her real parents, that there's no way she could even be ours.", Bakura said, not even noticing Aria taking a lock of his hair and putting it into her mouth.

Ryou did notice, and took Aria away. Bakura looked at him angrily, but Ryou just picked up the lock of his hair that Aria was chewing on, and showed it to him. He tucked it back so he didn't have to worry about it.

"She won't even notice," Ryou said, taking the ponytail hook off his wrist and putting his hair up so Aria didn't try to chew on it. "We all look the same."

"One day, she'll figure out that two males can't have a child together naturally, and then, what?", Bakura asked.

"Then, we'll take her to Marik. We'll introduce her to her real father, and explain that her mother isn't alive anymore. It'll be hard to explain without one of us breaking out in tears, which will most likely be Aria and Marik, possibly me, as well. But, still, she'll be ours," Ryou told him.

"I still miss Teddy," Bakura muttered.

"Hey, I miss her, too. But, her death is the reason we have Aria, now. And, think about it. If Marik had her, her name would be something along the lines of Malika," Ryou said.

"Yeah, but it would be nicer to have Teddy alive than to have a daughter. If anything, we could've just gone to good old China and adopted. We could've forced Marik to keep this kid, and we wouldn't have any problems whatsoever," Bakura said, leaning over the balcony railing.

"It's still nice to know Teddy found true love while she was alive," Ryou said, sitting down on the chair Bakura had set out on the balcony. "Marik was really nice to her, nice enough to give us what we have."

"Sure," Bakura said, turning toward him. "Marry her, have sex with her, have a kid with her, kill her. I think he killed her because he didn't want to have any more children, and he didn't want the one his wife had just had. So, he pretends to be grieving over his poor, dead wife, and gives the child he didn't want to his 'closest friends', so they will only see a man who his mourning his lost wife."

"Bakura, don't judge a book by it's cover. I know you love Aria, and I know you're still friends with Marik. Just..."

Ryou stood up and walked inside. Bakura stayed on the balcony, closing and locking the doors behind him. He looked out, and saw a familiar figure walking upon the edge of the beach behind the house. Bakura, immediately recognizing the person, unlocked the balcony doors, and jumped from the edge. The person on the shoreline ran towards Bakura, who was running toward him. The two collided, but quickly hugged each other to keep themselves standing.

"I missed you," Bakura said, tears running down his face.

"I can't believe it; I actually found you. I walked, and swam all the way from Egypt to get here. I'm broke, I don't have enough money to afford cross-country transportation."

"You're amazing. I... I... She's still alive. I never tried to kill her. She's alive. Is she why you came back?", Bakura asked.

"I came back for you. I can't truly live alone. I knew who to come to. But, it looks like I'm...", he fainted in Bakura's arms.

"Don't worry, Marik. We'll get you help," Bakura said to him.

Bakura picked him up off the ground, and carried him inside.


	6. ThiefShipping

"I still can't believe it. I've lived in this house for 30 years. You've lived in it for 10. And, now, we're moving out. We're moving out after living in the same house together for almost 10 years."

Marik could only come up on Bakura from behind, wrap his arms around his neck, and lean over and give him a kiss on the cheek. Bakura kissed him back, and Marik pulled Bakura to the ground. Bakura landed directly on the floor with a thud, as Marik had stepped out of the way as Bakura fell. Marik stepped around to be standing at Bakura's feet, and he got onto his knees, eventually putting himself on top of Bakura.

"I don't want to go," Bakura said. "There're so many memories here."

"Well," Marik kissed Bakura's cheek again, "it's time to make new ones. Come on. Let's go pack up the room." Marik stood up, and helped Bakura to his feet.

 _But I don't want to make new ones_ , Bakura thought.

* * *

Bakura put three or four books into a box. All he and Marik had were boxes that presents had come in for Christmas; meant for holding clothing, two or three books, things like that. It made things difficult, as they were trying to fit multiple articles of clothing and five or more books in said boxes.

They had personal tote bags and handlebags and things like that, but that made life hard, having to pack all those bags into the back of a moving van, then open all those bags and either put them in a spot or throw them away. Moving was a complicated process, but they were trying to make it work.

Bakura went to put a blanket in a box, but it was too small. He groaned.

"You know," Marik said, walking towards Bakura, "I hate it when I grab a box that's way too big for what I'm trying to put in it."

"Could I use that?", Bakura asked.

"Oh. Here," Marik said, handing it to Bakura and grabbing a smaller one off a stack of boxes set off to Bakura's left.

He tried to put the blanket in the box, but it still wouldn't fit. "Damn it. Damn it. Damn it! Why won't it fit?!", he screamed.

He threw the box across the room. Marik turned around, and saw Bakura throwing more things-mostly boxes-from his side of the room to the other. As he picked up Marik's desk to throw it, Marik put a hand on Bakura's shoulder.

"Now, now. Let's not do this today. I don't want to have shove another sedative down your throat," Marik told him.

Bakura's arm lowered to his side, and Marik helped Bakura put the desk back down onto the floor."Listen," he said, taking Bakura's left hand into his, and looping around to sit on the bed in front of Bakura. "I understand that you don't want to move. I understand that you're mad at me about this."

"I'm not mad," Bakura said, breathing hard. "I'm infuriated."

Marik started to stroke his hair. "Now, now. Don't be that way. Try to be nice."

"I can't," Bakura said, breathing harder. "Why would I be?!"

"Honey, please. Calm down. For me?", Marik asked, trying to stay calm.

Bakura jerked his hand out of Marik's. "NO! NOT FOR YOU! NOT FOR ANYONE!"

He attempted to stand, but fell to his knees. "I'm..." he started breathing incredibly hard, "sorry for lashing out on you. Can you..." he took another large gap in his sentence to breathe, "forgive me?"

Marik leaned down, and put a hand to Bakura's forehead. Bakura felt relieved to feel the cold metal of Marik's wedding ring touch his skin. "Honey, you're burning up. I mean it, it feels like my hand's on fire."

Bakura took in a small breath, and collapsed.

* * *

Bakura slowly opened his eyes. He reached to put his hand on his forehead, but found a cold, wet rag on there instead. He looked over to his left, where Marik had his back turned, scribbling on paper.

"Marik.", Bakura called.

Marik jumped, let out a noise in fright, and turned around. He breathed out a sigh of relief. "Good, you're awake. How do you feel?"

Bakura sighed. "I feel like shit, Marik," he answered.

Despite what Bakura thought Marik would do, he watched in surprise as Marik smiled. "Yeah. When you passed out, your fever was pretty high. I mean it, 109°. I had to undress you and and put you in the tub; fill it with cold water. While you were lying there, I force-medicated you with some Acetaminophen, and put a cold rag-that same rag that's currently touching your skin-on your forehead."

He ran over to Bakura, and hugged him tightly. "I thought I was going to lose you."

Bakura put his hand in Marik's. They searched one another's hand, looking for the other's wedding ring. They sighed with relief as they found them. Marik leaned over to kiss Bakura, mouth to mouth, but Bakura pulled away.

"You'll get sick, too," Bakura told him. "I don't want you to come down with this."

Marik smiled. "I'll take my chances."

No matter how hard Bakura tried to pull away, Marik managed to get him. Bakura nearly screamed the second Marik pulled away from him, but Marik only smiled and hugged him tightly.

"Listen, honey, I'm here for you. I'm not going to sit still and look pretty while you lay down, here, miserable. I'm going to wait on you, hand and foot. You're my husband, and I'm not going to sit here and watch you die. I love you," Marik told him.

Bakura hugged him back. Marik started to pet him, and he felt calm. He started to remember the day of his wedding. It was like it was only yesterday, he remembered it so well...

* * *

 _Bakura neared the door, with Akefia right behind him. Akefia sighed as Bakura started to put his right knee to the ground, leaning over to look through the keyhole._

 _"Bakura, you really shouldn't be doing this," Akefia told him. " Isn't it bad luck to see your... fiancée in their wedding attire before the wedding itself?"_

 _Bakura rolled his eyes. "Oh, please, Akefia. That's just an old wives tale. Besides, what could one peek through the keyhole hurt?"_

 _Bakura put his other knee on the ground, and began to look through the keyhole of the door, but Akefia just stood over to Bakura's left and sighed. When Bakura looked through the keyhole, he began to blush._

 _"Oh, Marik, you look great," Yugi reassured him, brushing his hair._

 _Ishizu came up behind him, and twisted his hair into a bun. The wedding dress itself was majestic enough, but the hairstyle made him look even better. Marik could not even think of why he decided to get a dress instead of a tuxedo, like Bakura had. Maybe it's because he didn't want to show what he really was, despite the fact that all of the wedding guests knew him, and him to be male._

 _Maybe it was because he felt too close to the same as Bakura, if he were to wear a suit, and there was really no other option for him. Or maybe it was because he just wanted to feel like he was good-looking on his wedding day. In any circumstance, one wouldn't have been able to tell whether Marik was a girl or a boy dressing in drag. It was really the latter, but most would believe it to be the former._

 _"Oh, Marik. It's... not what I expected, but you look marvellous," Ishizu said to him._

 _"Yeah, that's what they'll say when dressing in drag is the best fashion design ever created; which, may I tell you, will be never," Marik said._

 _"Please, Marik," Ishizu started. She continued to talk, but Bakura started running down the hallway as Marik began to stand._

 _"Bakura?!", Akefia shouted in surprise._

 _"I've got to get to the altar before anyone notices I'm gone!", Bakura screamed._

 _Akefia only laughed as he began to follow Bakura into the main hall of the wedding chapel. When they got inside, all of the guests were there, and the best men were waiting on both sides of the altar._

 _"Took you long enough!", Odion and Ryou shouted in unison._

 _"Marik's still coming out of there, so we'll be here for just a minute," Bakura informed them._

 _"Yeah, and the city orchestra just wants to play your Wedding March and get out of here!", Yami yelled._

 _"Shut your cakehole," Bakura yelled back._

 _Suddenly, the doors opened, and Marik was walking down the aisle in his silk dress with lace sleeves. Ishizu was with him, her arm in his. As he walked up onto the altar, Ishizu lifted his veil, and the two hugged before Marik walked up the two steps to the altar, and stood next to Bakura._

 _Akefia stood at the podium-like stand on the altar, acting as if a priest. He muttered a few things, and whenever either boy was asked a question, they replied "I do", as they had been instructed. They never paused for even a second to ponder their answer; they knew what they wanted._

 _Mokuba passed a ring to Marik, who slipped the ring onto Bakura's ring finger. Bakura was handed a ring, as well, and slipped it onto Marik's ring finger._

 _"You may now kiss the... um... uh...", Akefia wasn't sure of the right word._

 _Marik smiled. "Groom is just fine," he told him, and he leaned over and kissed Bakura on the mouth. Bakura had no resistance to it, he allowed it to happen, and joined in on it. He knew now, that he would never let Marik leave his side, and he would never leave Marik's._

* * *

"I still can't believe that you remember all that," Marik said as he dished out Bakura's medicine. "All I remember is that kiss."

"How could you forget it?", Bakura said, speaking with a whisper.

The supposed cold that affected him had been raging through his body for a week, and with each passing day, the disease got worse, no matter what medicine he was given, or what methods Marik tried. He just got worse and worse. Today, he seemed to finally be recovering.

"I don't know how you could forget it," Marik said, handing Bakura his tiny medicine cup of pills and a glass of water.

Bakura smiled. Before he could even raise the glass of water to his lips, he started coughing hard. Marik had his back turned, so he saw nothing.

"Honey, how many times have I told you? Small sips," he said, smiling.

Bakura's coughing fit began to cease. "Marik," he said, his voice gravelly, "I never took a sip of it. Not a drop ended up in my mouth."

Marik put his hand to Bakura's forehead. "Your fever's back," he told Bakura, "and it brought a cough with it."

"Marik... Marik. Marik..."

Marik began to pet him. "Come on," he said, lifting Bakura off the bed, and walking him away.

"Where...? Where are you taking me...? Where are...?"

"Shhh," he consoled Bakura, stroking his hair. "It'll be okay, honey. I'm going to..."

"Water... cold water..."

"Yeah. That's what I'm doing, honey. Just calm down. Everything will be okay."

Marik walked into the bathroom. He started the water, and held Bakura in his arms as it filled the bathtub. He slowly took Bakura's shirt off of him. Bakura opened his eyes slightly as he felt Marik's hand on his chest, which had to be the warmest area of his body. Marik's hand undoubtedly felt cold to him. Marik then gulped as he took Bakura's pants and underwear off of him, and put him into the tub.

The cold water began to run from the faucet down onto Bakura's forehead. The rest of the water in the tub was cooling off his body. Marik began to take a plastic cup and fill it with water, then proceeding to unpour the water over Bakura. He was trying to cool him off as quickly as possible so he could have him lay down and rest. Marik only sighed as he put a few Acetaminophen pills on Bakura's tongue, and poured fresh water from the faucet into his mouth.

He forcefully closed his mouth, and tilted his head. "Come on. Honey, swallow. This'll help your fever, but you need to swallow. Swallow for me, honey. You need to take these."

Bakura ended up swallowing, and he coughed slightly, most likely because there were still drops of water in his throat, due to his swallow being forced.

"Marik..."

Marik lifted his head. "Are you okay?"

"Marik... Marik..."

He could see it. Bakura was tossing his head around, calling for Marik. It was clear that Bakura had fallen asleep; the fever had taken its toll on him. Marik put a thermometer into his mouth for a minute, and lifted his hand out of the tub to hold it. He wanted to hold it; he wanted to give a little bit of comfort to him, even if Bakura didn't know what Marik was doing.

The thermometer beeped. Marik pulled it out of Bakura's mouth. A 97° temperature. Marik let out a sigh of relief, and lifted Bakura out of the bathtub, dressing him in a bathrobe and taking him to the bed. As Marik laid Bakura on the bed, he began to open his eyes. Marik smiled.

"Marik? Is that you?", Bakura asked, slurring.

Marik started stroking his hair. "Yeah, honey. It's me."

Bakura took a washrag from next to him, and put it over his mouth to cough. When he pulled it away from his mouth, there was blood splattered on it. Marik seemed to notice.

"Don't worry," he said, "you'll be fine, honey."

He leaned over and kissed Bakura on the cheek. Bakura gripped tighter onto he hand of Marik's that was in his hand.

"Marik. I think I'm dying. This illness, whatever it might be, is killing me from the inside. I'm... dying, Marik. Dying."

"Don't say that! Honey, you're not dying, you can't be. If you were, you'd..."

He didn't get to finish, as Bakura burst out in another coughing fit. More blood went over onto the floor. Marik watched in both horror and fear as he watched Bakura lift his head up, a ring of blood around his mouth.

"Marik, can't you see it? I'm..." he started coughing again, and drops of blood splattered the bedsheets. "I'm dying. Death is hovering over me at every moment, trying to make sure I succumb to his deadly embrace. His sister, she will put me in her sleep eternal. Death and Sleep, they work together, you see... and they're working together to make sure I die."

Marik rubbed his hands over one another in his lap. Bakura may have been talking of his death, and how it was slowly working over him, but his words were beautiful. He could've been a poet, had he wanted to be. But he didn't want to be a writer; a poet. He wanted to be Marik's husband. And, that, he was.

"Don't worry, honey. You won't die; I'll make sure of it. Just lay down, sleep a little, okay?"

"But... what if I die?"

"You won't die, I promise you." Marik gently kissed his forehead. "You need to rest."

"But, Marik, I'm not..." Marik could see that Bakura was struggling to keep his eyes open; his voice above a whisper, "tired."

Marik put his hand at the top of Bakura's eyes, and slowly lowered his eyelids until Bakura's eyes were closed. "You're definitely wanting to sleep. Do it."

"If I die, you'll be sorry," Bakura told him, slowly drifting off to sleep.

Marik smiled as he walked over to his desk.

* * *

There were thoughts running through Marik's head. Thoughts that Bakura might actually die. Thoughts that he would never see Bakura again. He tried to wipe the thoughts from his mind, and change his focus to the pages on his desk. That novel wasn't going to write itself, and he was only halfway finished. There was so much more to do... and he was running out of paper.

Marik knew, it was a novel that Bakura would like, but Marik was going to wait to show it to him until after it was published. It's not that Marik was self-conscious about his work (for Ra's sake, he was **publishing** the novel!), he just wanted to wait and show Bakura the book when he had written under a pen name, and it was no longer simple sheets of paper.

He was scribbling words down so fast, he couldn't think about anything but the book. That was, until he dropped his pen. He glanced back at Bakura, who seemed to still be asleep. Marik could see that he was breathing, still, but he wasn't sure if Bakura was asleep or waking up. He stood up and walked away from the desk, and over to Bakura's bedside.

"Honey? Are you asleep?", Marik whispered.

"Yeah," Bakura moaned.

Marik smiled. "Yeah. Sure, you are."

He glanced over at Marik, then back to the ceiling. "I want to be asleep."

Marik leaned over and kissed Bakura's forehead. Bakura smiled. "So, have you found out what I've come down with?"

"Bakura, you have a doctor coming here in a little while," Marik informed him. "I think that we should only research it if he can't find out what's wrong with you. And, I sincerely doubt that we'll have to do anything other than pay doctor's bills."

"How do you know that he'll know exactly what's wrong with me?"

Marik kissed his cheek, and hopped up onto the mattress. "I don't."

"You've lost your mind, Marik Ishtar."

"My name is Marik Bakura-Ishtar, not the ugly name you have just called me! I am Marik Sebastian Bakura-Ishtar III," Marik scolded him jokingly. He laughed, and the doorbell rang.

"I'll get it," Marik yelled, and ran out of the room.

Bakura began to chew on his nails.

* * *

"Okay, goodbye, now," Marik said politely and cheerily as the doctor walked out the door.

He closed the door behind him, and ran into Bakura's room. Bakura just barely opened his eyes as Marik entered the room, and quickly closed them again.

While the doctor had been questioning Marik about Bakura's condition, Bakura had begun coughing and letting out large amounts of blood. He then passed out from blood loss. The doctor had immediately pulled out hospital equipment from the trunk of her car. Blood was immediately injected into Bakura's bloodstream by means of an IV needle, and a breathing mask was put on his face. The doctor also took extra precautions and hook him up to a heart monitor.

The doctor had left all of the equipment in the house and on Bakura, and left, because she realized how bad the condition was. She said that she would come back, in a week, at the least, with some sort of diagnosis and a prognosis for Bakura. But that didn't stop Bakura from losing his energy, and Marik from getting anxious about Bakura's condition.

"Hey. Are you alright?"

Bakura slowly opened his eyes and looked over at Marik, who had tears rolling down his face. Bakura couldn't even talk with the breathing mask on his face, so he just nodded his head lightly.

Marik smiled slightly. "Good. I was scared you were dying."

Bakura gripped onto Marik's hand tightly. He gestured to the mask. Marik was looking around, unsure of what to do, and he decided to do what Bakura wanted him to do, and he took the breathing mask off of Bakura's face.

"Honey? What's going on?"

Bakura pulled Marik to him, and kissed him directly on the mouth. Marik began to cry as Bakura let go of him, and fell. The heart monitor started to flat line.

"No! NO! NO!", he screamed, hugging onto Bakura. "I'll never forget you," he whispered.

That day, Marik had him buried in the backyard. His tombstone was inscribed:

 **Yami "Bakura" Bakura-Ishtar**

 **1982-2017**

 **A wonderful friend and husband who will never be forgotten through the years.**


	7. CitronShipping

**Blackbird singin' in the dead of night, take these broken wings, and learn to fly...**

"I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna do it!"

That's what Marik thought aloud, and how loudly did he think. He went up. Up. Up. With every beat of his wings, he went farther and farther up into the sky. He kept going higher, closer and closer to the stars. He was 20 feet off the ground. 30 feet. 40 feet. 50. He was going on 60, when...

-CRACK!-

His left wing cracked. Down he went. He rapidly flapped his right wing to keep himself up. It was working. He passed the 60 mark, and went to 65. He was going to 70. He went past 70.

-CRACK!-

His right wing cracked, too. He was falling. He fell past the marks. 70. 65. 60. 55. 50. 45...

He felt as if he was in someone's arms, suddenly. He looked up, seeing a dark face with a scar running from the bottom of its left eye down to its cheek.

"Akefia," Marik whispered.

"Come on," Akefia said affectionately. "Let's get you home."

Marik gripped onto Akefia's sleeves as they flew off to Akefia's house.

 **All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise...**

Marik groaned as Akefia bandaged his wings with gauze.

"That hurt, you know," Akefia said.

"What?", Marik said, confused. "Carrying me?"

"No. Having to know that I would need to be there to rescue you. You should stop trying to fly when you know you can't."

Marik scowled. "I want to. I know I could, if I tried hard enough."

Akefia glanced back at Marik, his eyes watery out of worry. "Marik. You remember the name of your condition?"

Marik shook his head. "Osteoporosis," Akefia reminded him. "It means your bones are too weak to function excessively without breaking. That means flying, too. And do you know what happens if you try to fly?"

"My wing-bones break?", Marik said sarcastically, as he already knew that his answer was correct.

"You mean your carinae, but yes. And I don't want to see you break your carinae beyond repair. So," he scruffed Marik's hair, and stood. "Don't fly. Stay here until I tell you. I'm leaving to help Pepper."

Marik scoffed. "Pepper? That bastard? She robs you of your money every time you go to heal her! Hell, she should be paying you!"

"Oh, sod off, Marik! I've got to leave now, or I'll be broke!", Akefia yelled, going up the tube and into the sky.

Marik sighed, and closed his eyes. He didn't know why he wanted Akefia to stay. Maybe he just wanted to hug him. Maybe kiss him. Possibility even... no, he couldn't. He drifted into sleep, tears slowly falling down his cheeks.

 **Blackbird singin' in the dead of night, take these sunken eyes and learn to see...**

"Marik! Open the door! Marik!"

Marik opened his eyes suddenly, shocked to hear a voice. He had to have been sleeping for a while; he was having difficulty getting up. He felt dizzy and sick to his stomach. He opened the door, seeing Akefia there.

With two dark leather eyepatches over his eyes.

"Akefia!", Marik screamed. "What the heck happened to you?!"

"Take me in."

Marik guided Akefia into the house, sitting him on the couch.

"What happened?", Marik repeated, although calmer.

"Pepper," Akefia whispered. "I wasn't prepared. She needed so many things done for her daughters. Cascade had a cold. Lynn had sprained her ankle. Judi had an allergic reaction to the peanut butter Lilia forced into her mouth. Speaking of Lilia, she had been violently pecked by magpies while returning home with Lynn. That's how the poor girl sprained her ankle. She was trying to save her little sister from those awful birds. But, those girls had nothing compared to Diana.

"Diana had anemia when I found her. There was nothing I could do. I was trying to help her, but she died as I was standing right over her. Her mother blamed me. She had poor Cascade get her dagger for her. Pepper forced me to the ground, and stabbed both my eyes out. I flew away, without even paying her. I was failing to fly, with my eyes out and the blood spewing out of them. Thankfully, Ryou found me, and gave me these eyepatches. Pegasus was holding him prisoner. Seems to like taking him in for sexual slavery.

"Anyway, so I recklessly flew here the whole way."

"How'd you know you were at your house?", Marik asked.

"I crashed into the tube. My house is the only one that has a tube, remember?", Akefia reminded him.

Marik nodded. "Don't worry, Akefia. I'll get you help." Marik flapped his wings to go up the tube, but he felt them crack, and he fell right on his face.

"Marik, please! You can't keep trying when you know you're going to lose life's challenges! Have you heard the phrase 'never try, never fail'? Because, you really need to remember that phrase right now," Akefia said.

Marik walked out the door.

 **All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free...**

"Okay! I've got this! I can fly! I can fly!"

Marik flapped his wings slowly, slowly lifting himself. He trusted, flying forward. He kept it at a steady pace, causing him to stay at the same height, but flying forward. He was actually flying. He could tell Akefia he'd actually made it now. He was going to return with help, using his wings. Akefia would be so proud of him, even if he hadn't seen it himself.

Then, something came to him. He didn't even know who he was supposed to get for help. Was he just going to fly somewhere until he found someone that could help Akefia in his condition? He didn't know what he was supposed to do. He kept flapping his wings.

* * *

He was over Blackburg, now. He could fly down there to try and find someone who could help. Then again, who could help permanent blindness? At least he could try.

-CRACK!-

-CRACK!-

Marik screamed as he began to fall to the ground. Why did he think he could fly? He was foolish to think. Now, he was going to die a quick, painful death. He closed his eyes, and took in a deep breath.

 **Blackbird, fly. Blackbird, fly. Into the light of a dark, black night...**

Where was he? It looked dark. A small light in the middle of the room. He couldn't see. He looked down to see his hands. He could see them, just fine. He looked down at his legs and feet. He could see those, too. He looked behind him to see his wings. Those were visible, too. He held his hands up, trying to make fire like he normally could. Akefia could make ice. Marik could make fire. He tried to manifest it. It formed, but snuffed out within seconds.

He didn't know where he was. It was dark, he couldn't use his fire, and the only thing that he had any ability to see was himself. He looked around again. He found himself focused on that light in the center of the room. He looked at it for a few seconds, and couldn't change his glance.

 _"Give me the Rod!"_

 _"I'll stab you first!"_

Marik gasped, and blinked. The voices that he heard were vaguely familiar. The first voice- the one asking for the Rod- that was Akefia. The second voice- the one telling Akefia he would stab him- was Malik. No. Marik was trapped in his own Millennium Rod, even though Malik was concealed inside Marik's body most of the time. The reason he heard the voices when he looked at the light was because he was seeing what Malik saw.

That meant Akefia was being threatened by Malik.

Marik flapped his wings, but fell flat on his face. He looked back at his blue and black wings, which weren't all that blue and black, considering that they had pale yellow gauze around them. That was either from earlier, or Akefia had been given Marik and he had decided to bandage him again before he transformed into Malik. Either way, Akefia was being threatened by Malik now. Marik found no other option but to look in the light again. It took a few seconds before the images became a vision in his eyes.

 _"Please! Let Marik go!"_

 _"What're you going to do to stop me, blind man?"_

 _"Something."_

 _"Sorry, but something is just a word. It isn't anything."_

 _Malik took the cap of the Millennium Rod off the bottom, showing a sharp needle as thick as a knife on the end. Malik stepped on Akefia's foot, and Akefia fell to the ground, on his back, screaming in pain. Malik began using his other foot to step on Akefia's hand. He began to stab Akefia in the stomach, and in the chest._

Marik stopped looking. He couldn't stand to see anymore. His evil half was hurting Akefia. He wanted to take over his own body right then and there. We wanted to stop Malik, and kiss Akefia's wounds to their recovery. But he couldn't. He had to sit on the sidelines and watch. Either that, or he could turn away from the light to put himself out of his own misery.

"Stop! Stop hurting Akefia!"

He didn't understand why he shouted it. He shouted it in hopes that it would work, probably.

"Don't hurt my Akefia! I decide what to do with him, not you! And, I decide that he will not be hurt, and you will leave him alone!"

Malik wasn't listening, it seemed. Maybe he was shouting all that junk for nothing. Maybe Akefia was going to die at Malik's hands. Either way, if Malik had the ability to hear him, he probably would'very ignored Marik, anyway. Only one Yami in the history of the three would've listened or given in: Yami Yugi. Yami Bakura (Akefia's descendant) was villainous, and barely ever let anyone see Ryou (his Hikari). Malik was vile, cruel, and vicious, and would do anything to get his way. And, now, he was stabbing Akefia for every unexplained reason.

 _You don't have an opinion. Shut your mouth, and sit there._

It was Malik's voice. Malik was talking to him. Marik knew that he had to break Malik.

"I do have an opinion! It's my love life; mine!"

 _Love life? -chuckle- I thought Akefia was just a pain in your ass who deserved to go to Hell._

"No. **You** deserve to go to Hell. Now, leave him alone."

Malik had no response. Marik quickly looked into the bright light in the middle of the room.

 _"Well, Akefia? Any last words? Curses to the Pharaoh? Utterances about how happy you are to leave Marik? Tell me, Akefia."_

 _Akefia took in a deep breath. "Marik..."_

 _"That can't be it."_

 _Akefia took in two more deep breaths. "I... I..."_

 _"You_ _ **what**_ _?"_

 _He took in the biggest breath he had ever taken in before. "Marik, I love you."_

 _Akefia collapsed._

Akefia loved him, too? Marik screamed out of frustration. His beautiful Akefia was dying, and he wasn't there to hold him. He reached into the light in the center, trying to get to the love of his life. Suddenly, he felt himself being absorbed by the light. He knew what was going on. He was getting control of his own body again.

"Akefia! Wait for me, honey!"

 **Blackbird, fly. Blackbird, fly. Into the light of a dark, black night...**

Marik looked up. He could see the pale yellow ceiling with its crystal chandelier hanging from it. He looked down. He saw the acacia wood floor, treated and shiny. He looked forward. He could see Akefia, unconscious and bleeding to death. Marik screamed, and rushed to Akefia's side. He grabbed Akefia's tan hand. It felt cold and hard.

Marik screamed, this time in agony. "Akefia, no! Akefia! You can't die! No! I love you; don't die on me! AKEFIA! AKEFIA! AKEFIA, NO!"

He looked at Akefia again. He saw his eyes open slightly, and his nose moved, taking in a sharp breath. "Marik...", he whispered, leaning into him.

"Are you alright?", Marik asked, even though he knew 'no' was the answer.

"Now that you're here," Akefia whispered, "I'm just fine."

Marik began stroking Akefia's hair. Without even realizing it, he was hugging Akefia loosely. "Akefia. I need to get you to a doctor."

"I'm a doctor; I don't need one," Akefia said.

"But you can't treat your own wounds."

"I'll be fine."

"No, no, you won't."

Akefia muttered something Marik couldn't make out. It sounded like 'it's free', or it might've been 'list creed'. Whatever it was, Marik couldn't make it out. "Akefia. Please, say that again. I couldn't hear you."

"Kiss me," Akefia whispered.

Marik gasped, and blushed slightly. He lifted Akefia up, and leaned down to him. He put his lips to Akefia's, and put him in a sitting up position. "Help me stand.", Akefia mumbled.

Marik slowly helped Akefia to his feet, but the two were still kissing the whole time. As soon as the two were on their feet, Akefia was kissing and hugging Marik at the same time. It took the two of them hours before they would pull away. Marik looked in shock at seeing Akefia stand with no stab wounds. Akefia took off his eyepatches, and his eyes were as fine as they were before. He could see quite clearly, Marik was sure.

"How?", Marik asked in shock.

Akefia smiled. "You have healing powers," he answered, going behind Marik.

"Hey, what are you doing?", Marik asked, somewhat disturbed.

Akefia came back around, standing in front of him, holding pale yellow bandages. Marik flapped his wings. They were fine, and unbandaged.

"Come on," Akefia said, throwing the bandages aside. "I want you to follow me somewhere."

"But, I can't fly," Marik reminded him.

"I know. That's why we're walking the mile."

"We're walking a mile?"

"You won't have to do it for long," Akefia said, smiling. He walked out the door.

Marik reluctantly followed Akefia out of the house.

 **Blackbird singin' in the dead of night, take these broken wings, and learn to fly...**

Marik took the last few steps, standing next to Akefia at the edge of a cliff. Akefia turned to look at Marik, his back facing the drop that was just about 50 miles down. Akefia then proceeded to lean back, and fell down. Marik watched in shock and fear as he saw Akefia fall 50 feet. 75 feet. 100. 150. 175. 200. 225. 250...

Then, Akefia suddenly came up in a burst of wind, blowing leaves from the surrounding trees everywhere. He began making words and shapes out of the leaves blowing around, starting with Marik's name surrounded by a heart. It made the former blush out of embarrassment and out of affection. Akefia began to make an arrow out of the falling leaves, making Marik freeze. Akefia wanted Marik to join him in his path of flight.

Marik stood on the edge of the cliff, and began to flap his wings lightly. He began to rise a few inches. A few feet. Some yards. He began to go higher and higher. He was right next to Akefia, now, and the stars were within reach. He darted upwards, reaching out and touching the sky. He grabbed a sparkling star, and approached Akefia with it.

"Now, how'd you get that?", Akefia asked, matter-of-factly.

"By flying," Marik answered. "I can fly now."

Akefia nodded, and jumped into the air. Marik did the same, following him.

" _Blackbird fly. Blackbird fly. Into the light of the dark black night. Blackbird fly. Blackbird fly. Into the light of the dark black night._ ", Akefia sang as Marik followed him.

 **Blackbird? What blackbird?** , Marik thought. Then, suddenly, it dawned on him. Akefia was talking about Marik himself. With every beat of his giant, blue and black wings, Marik looked like a graceful blackbird flying through the air, and Akefia looked like an angel at his side, with his feathery, white wings that would make one think of an angel.

Marik smiled as Akefia continued the song.

" _Blackbird singin' in the dead of night, take these broken wings, and learn to fly..._ "

Marik smiled, and flapped a few wing beats higher than Akefia. " _All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise. All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise!_ "

The two kept beating their wings, as Marik handed Akefia the star, and the two flew down into the gorge, only to keep coming back up again. Every night they would do this. They called it a harmless game of Blackbird. And, one day, the children's nursery rhyme they were singing that night would be famous. They didn't know how big of an inspiration they would be. But, they did know one thing.

They were made for each other.


	8. CrusadeShipping

**I never said I'd lie and wait forever...**

The boat skimmed the water lightly. The motorboat the two were on allowed them to simply reach out and touch the water. Dartz did that often. It would be greeted with sadness, such as a sigh or even the occasional tear. Rafael would sit next to him and stare. He understood what was running through his head; he felt sympathy for poor Dartz. He just couldn't look at it without sighing, himself.

He felt like he could just reach out and pet him. He could if he wished to. He could stroke Dartz's hair, turquoise and as blue as the sea he once lived in. But he didn't. He had a feeling it would damage his trust with Dartz, so he kept his hands to himself. That sympathetic half of him wanted to reach out to Dartz and comfort him, but his 'keep the trust' half was overpowering it. He kept his hands balled up in his lap.

Maybe he would've been frightened if he was on a cruise ship. Yeah, he knew he would've. He was the only survivor of that crash. Dartz rescued him. Yes, Dartz. Dartz was the only reason he was still alive now. Shouldn't Rafael have done something in return? Sure, he helped Dartz revive Grand Dragon Leviathan, but Dartz deserved more. Rafael didn't know what, he just knew 'more'.

He sat several feet away from Dartz, but still within arm's reach, just in case anything happened. He felt the need to scoot a little closer, maybe put his arms around him. Yeah. He wanted to, but that would bring him closer to breaking their trust. He had to keep his hands to himself, no matter how hard it got. Oh, but that hair. That soft, silken turquoise hair that made Dartz look amazing beyond all belief. He wanted to stroke it, to feel it.

"Rafael, what're you doing?"

Rafael looked forward. He was actually running his fingers through Dartz's hair. He thought he was only fantasizing it when he saw it at first, but he was actually doing it. He pulled away, his face a pale shade of red.

Dartz turned to look at him, and smiled. "I've been waiting for you to do that for a long time."

Rafael began blushing slightly as Dartz put his arms around his neck. Suddenly, Dartz tipped over, bringing both him Rafael down into the water. Dartz surfaced after Rafael did, being more pulled down by Rafael's weight on top of him as the pair fell. While Rafael was slightly concerned, Dartz came up laughing. He pulled Rafael closer to him, kissing him straight on the lips.

Rafael pulled away red. Dartz smiled.

"That's it," he said sweetly. "Now, we just need to swim to shore."

Dartz gasped as he felt Rafael lift him onto his back, and begin to swim off. Dartz smiled again, blushing slightly.

 **If I died, we'd be together now...**

Dartz took in a deep breath of salty air as Rafael swam a few more feet, and lifted Dartz onto the dock. Rafael lifted himself on, as Dartz didn't have time to act as Rafael did so.

Dartz smiled."Come on," he said. "Let's get somewhere. Anywhere. Except maybe KaibaCorp."

The two walked down the streets, both Dartz wrapping both of his arms around one of Rafael's. As they walked around the town, their appearance was greeted with screams and tears. Dartz started tightening his grip around Rafael out of fear of it, himself. Was he supposed to be frightened of the man he was holding onto? Was he the person everyone was frightened of? He didn't know.

"Hey, Dartz!"

Dartz looked forward. Right in front of him was Marik. He knew Marik didn't like him at all. He knew he was going down, with or without a fight. Dartz let go of Rafael and screamed and Marik launched himself onto him. Marik took the cap off of the bottom of his Millennium Rod, and began to stab Dartz.

"How's about we get the green one first?!", Marik shouted, stabbing Dartz's green eye with it.

He proceeded to slash Dartz's stomach, causing him to bleed out tremendously. Dartz screamed in pain, and Marik laughed.

"Just what I wanted to hear!", Marik screamed in laughter.

He began to stab his arms, just before he felt someone at least three times his size lift him up.

"Stay away from him!", Rafael yelled, and threw Marik to the ground.

Marik closed his eyes, unconscious. Rafael lifted Dartz into his arms, carefully.

"Dartz, are you...?"

"I'm fine, Rafael. I'm..."

Dartz tightly gripped his had around two or three of Rafael's fingers, and fainted.

"DARTZ!", Rafael screamed.

 **I can't always just forget her...**

"Don't worry," Rafael said, holding Dartz's hand tightly. "They've arrested Marik. He's going to be punished for what he did to you. You're going to be alright, Dartz. I promise you."

Dartz didn't speak. The breathing mask over his face, the heart monitor plugged up to him, and the fact that he was unconscious didn't help at all. Rafael gripped even tighter on Dartz's hand.

"Please. Don't die," Rafael sobbed.

A doctor walked towards the pair, putting a hand on Rafael's shoulder. "Your friend will be just fine. In fact, he's more than fine. He's going to be a father.", she said.

Rafael looked up in amazement. "What?"

"That's Dartz Paradius, right? He's pregnant. With twins; a boy and a girl.", the doctor said gently.

Rafael put his head in his left hand, unable to do anything but breathe. "He'll be fine, I assure you.", the doctor said reassuringly. "Of course, he's in such a critical condition, we're going to have to remove them from his body. The worst part about having to do that is that he's only two months pregnant, so the babies will come out really small and underweight. Does he smoke or drink?"

Rafael shook his head. "That's a good thing," the doctor said. "The babies won't be affected by any tobacco or alcohol going into his body. But, they will be really small, as I said before. Now, I'll give you a few minutes to talk to Mr. Paradius, but then we have to take him back for the Cesarean section."

Rafael nodded as the doctor walked away. "Did you hear that, Dartz?"

Dartz slowly opened his eyes, and nodded. "We're going to be parents, Rafael. Parents." Rafael tightened his grip on Dartz's hand.

"Excuse me, Master Dartz, but you said 'we'. Shouldn't you have said 'I'?", Rafael asked.

"I said what I meant, Rafael. I want you to be the other parent to my children.", Dartz said, smiling.

Rafael's face took on a look of surprise. "Do you mean it?"

Dartz nodded as the doctor and two of her nurses came in. They began to wheel him out of the room. Dartz waved "goodbye" to Rafael as the doors flung open, and he was forced to exit.

"Goodbye, Dartz," Rafael said as Dartz left.

He missed having Dartz's hand in his. He wanted to run his finger over it and tightly grip onto it. He wouldn't rest easy knowing that Dartz was going to be cut into and have his children removed from him. It made Rafael shiver. He wished Marik had never attacked Dartz. Then, Dartz would never have had to get a Cesarean section to get the twins removed. Then again, they never would've known he was pregnant without that happening. Rafael wasn't sure what to think about it.

 **But she could try...**

The doctors shuffled around Dartz, trying to find the unborn baby that was still inside of him. They had already found the baby boy just fine, but they couldn't find the girl. They knew that the girl would not survive inside of her father in the condition he was in.

"The girl! I found her!", one of the nurses shrieked.

She had indeed found her. Of course, her stats were much lower than that of her older brother. While her brother weighed 2 pounds, she only weighed about ½ pound. Her brother was 6 inches long, but she was only 3 ⅓ inches. The doctors were all anxious about how the little baby girl would fare compared to that of her brother, as he had a better chance of living than she did.

"Do you think we should keep her?", one of the nurses asked. "I mean, she will die, anyway."

The doctor shook her head. "No. Mr. Paradius and his friend will get suspicious if we keep her. We'll give them both to them, and they'll just have to cope with the loss of their daughter."

The nurse nodded, and gulped quietly.

* * *

They named their son Deverell, and their daughter Aquamarine. Rafael held Deverell, mostly, while Dartz mostly held Aquamarine. They took the occasional turn holding the other baby, but mostly held the ones mentioned above. They both noticed the drastic difference in size and weight between Deverell and Aquamarine. They had heard the doctors saying Aquamarine wouldn't survive after she got out of the hospital. Dartz held Aquamarine close to his chest, full of doubt that his daughter would die.

He handed Aquamarine to Rafael, and took Deverell from him. He stroked his head carefully, and cuddled him in such a tender way, anyone looking at Dartz would know he was the father of the baby he was holding. He smiled as his son gripped his little hand around his father's pointer finger.

Suddenly, he felt Deverell's grip on his finger fade. His arm dropped to his side, and he collapsed. Dartz gasped, and screamed in emotional agony.

Rafael looked up from Aquamarine, confused. "Dartz...?", he whispered, unsure of what to think.

"Deverell just died!", Dartz shouted.

"What?" Rafael was in denial. "He can't be! Aquamarine's life is in more danger than his was!"

"Well, looks like we're going to have to take extra good care of Aquamarine, now.", Dartz said through his tears.

The doctor came in, quiet as ever. "I heard a scream," she said. "Did something happen to one of the children?", she asked.

Dartz was sure that the doctor expected Aquamarine to be dead at this point. He used the arm that wasn't holding Deverell's lifeless body to wipe away the tears on his face. "My son has died," he said quietly.

The doctor gasped. "Deverell Paradius?", she asked again, unsure of what to think.

Dartz nodded. "Aquamarine, my daughter, is still alive, but... my son has perished."

The doctor took in a deep breath, and took Deverell's corpse out of Dartz's arms. She took a few steps away from Dartz, her back turned to him, eventually walking out of the room. As Rafael stood up and handed Aquamarine to Dartz, both men overheard the doctors chatting about how shocked they were that Aquamarine would die after her brother. They then heard the doctor reassuring the nurses that Aquamarine would probably die soon, and that there was no need to doubt their medical predictions.

"I can't believe it," Dartz said, cradling Aquamarine. "Now, we have only a daughter. It's not a problem, but... we were going to have a son, as well."

Rafael put an arm around Dartz. "It'll be alright. At least we still have Aquamarine."

Both men smiled as Aquamarine made a noise indicating that she felt calm as she nuzzled into her father.

 **At the end of the world...**

Dartz sat on the couch, rocking Aquamarine's small cradle back and forth with his foot. Rafael sat next to Dartz, wrapping an arm around him.

"I'm going to have to return to work soon," he said. "Will you be able to take care of her alone?"

Rafael nodded, and pulled Dartz towards him. The pair kissed, and they both smiled as Aquamarine laughed. "I love you," both men said. They had directed it at both each other and the baby, but it was interpreted as only being for the baby.

Aquamarine giggled, and her parents kissed again.


	9. WhisperShipping

"Wheeler!"

Malik chuckled. "Face it, Kaiba! Joey's under my control, now! You're never going to get through to him!"

 _Yeah, and you're never going to be a huge asshole,_ Kaiba thought.

"I heard that!", Malik shouted.

"What...?!"

"Mind reading comes with mind control, Kaiba. Get with the game."

Kaiba rolled his eyes. _Okay, no one in the history of ever tells Seto Kaiba to "get with the game"._

"Well, I just did," Malik said.

"Stop that! In the name of the Almighty God, stop!"

"Well, back to this. Joseph...?", Malik said, trying to focus on having Joey win the duel he had set up between him and Bakura.

Kaiba saw Bakura's teeth grind as the both of them watched Joey drew his next card. Kaiba knew the loser would be sent to the Shadow Realm, and he wasn't ready to watch Joey leave, whether he was possessed or not.

"Get ready to lose this duel!", Joey/Malik shouted. "I tribute Swordsman of Lightstar and Kuriboh to summon the mighty Red-Eyes Black Dragon!"

The holographic figures of the Swordsman of Lightstar and the Kuriboh vanished, replaced by the figure of the Red-Eyes Black Dragon. It was the exact opposite of Kaiba's Blue-Eyes White Dragons, which was what made him want it so much. He wanted to destroy it, so Joey couldn't use it against him.

Now, it would never be used against him, ever again.

"Hey, Mutt! Snap out of it! And whatever you do, don't lose! I don't..."

 _I don't want to lose you._

 _I don't want you to leave me._

 _I don't want to see you go._

Kaiba heard Malik snicker.

"I don't want to see that bitch of an albino win!"

"Hey! I'm not an albino! I just have light hair!"

Kaiba blew a raspberry in Bakura's direction. Bakura rolled his eyes, but turned back to the duel, once again feeling overpowered by the Red-Eyes Black Dragon on Joey/Malik's side of the field.

 _Come on, Joey. Win. Win for me. Please. Um... you heard nothing, Malik._

"Oh, I heard it... lover boy.", Malik said.

Bakura broke into hysterical laughter, laughing so hard, he fell down onto his behind. Malik started laughing, too, and Joey (being possessed) laughed along with them. Kaiba lowered his head, hiding it behind the high collar of his KaibaCorp jacket.

 _Our song. Think about our song. You know which one I'm talking about, Joey. Please. Please, win. Malik, say nothing. Please, Joey. Please._

 _I want you to listen to me. Listen! Why won't you listen?! Listen to me, Mutt! Listen to me! Don't lose this duel, or I'll kill you! Do you hear me?! Listen to me, Wheeler! I'm talking to you! LISTEN!_

"Oh, what's wrong, Kaiba? Sad that your boyfriend isn't paying attention to you? You need the attention, don't you, weakling?"

Kaiba clenched his fists together. He wanted to punch Malik in the face, but he refrained from doing so. He was going to wait for Joey. Joey deserved to punch Malik, not him.

"DON'T LOSE!", Kaiba screamed.

Joey/Malik chuckled. "Now, I play the spell card 'Inferno Fire Blast'! You take damage equal to the combined total of attack points of Red-Eyes Black Dragons on my field! And, since I only have one, 2400 Life Points have gone down the drain... for you, that is!"

Bakura groaned as his Life Point counter dropped from 3700 to 1300. Joey/Malik still had all 4000 of his Life Points, so he was winning. It made Kaiba smirk.

"Now, enter the Battle Phase! My Red-Eyes Black Dragon will attack you directly!"

"Not yet! You've activated my Trap Card, idiot! I reveal my Mirror Force trap card! Your Red-Eyes Black Dragon is destroyed! Now, it's my turn!"

Bakura drew a card, and began to laugh hysterically, then he brought himself together. "I activate the spell card Monster Reborn! It allows me to take one monster from either player's Graveyard and Special Summon it onto my field! And, I choose your Red-Eyes Black Dragon! Now, 2400 attack points are mine to use, and you have no monsters on the field!

"But, I'm not done! I summon Feral Imp in attack mode! Now, I'll enter the Battle Phase! Since you have no face-down cards and no monsters to stop me, my Feral Imp and your Red-Eyes Black Dragon will attack you directly, dealing 3700 damage to your Life Points! How you like that for a turn around?!"

Joey/Malik fell to his knees, and Kaiba began to chew on his nails. Joey/Malik only had 300 Life Points left; one more hit, and he was finished.

"Come on, Mutt! What did I tell you about losing?!"

Malik laughed. "He can't hear a word you're saying, Kaiba! The only thing he can do at this point is duel! He can't love, just like you!"

Kaiba clenched his hands into fists. He fell to his knees and looked to the ground. Tears started streaming down his face and falling to the ground. He could love. He could emote. He could feel pain and anger and fear and sadness and happiness and... love. He could love. He loved Joey.

That was it. Joey. He wasn't 'Mutt' or 'Wheeler' or 'Dog'. He was Joey. No matter what anyone else said, he was Joey. Joey.

"Joey! Please, listen to me! I'm sorry for everything I've ever said! I swear, it doesn't mean anything anymore! I'm sorry, I tell you! I'm sorry!"

Malik laughed, but suddenly froze as the Millennium Rod he was holding in his hands started to go dull. The golden glow around it that indicated he was controlling someone was fading. Was it possible that Joey was breaking free of the Millennium Rod's control on him? Was it possible Malik was losing his power over Joey? It was possible, because it was happening.

Joey fell to his knees. "Kaiba? Where am I?"

Kaiba looks up from the ground, smiling. It was creeping out Malik and Bakura; Joey didn't notice. Kaiba ran over to Joey, and hugged him tight.

"I thought I had lost you," Kaiba said, leaning over towards Joey. The two touched lips quickly, and only Malik and Bakura had a reaction (Malik gagged; Bakura backed away from the scene).

When the two pulled away, Joey was smiling even more than Kaiba was. It didn't even seem to phase Joey that Kaiba was smiling; he was either extremely happy, or he was being very ignorant. Both boys looked straight into each other's eyes before leaning in to kiss again.

"I need a doctor," Malik said, leaning over the rail at the docks and throwing up into the sea.

"I need a blindfold," Bakura commented, putting his hand over his eyes.


	10. HeartShipping

"Push, Yugi! Push!", I screamed.

He screamed, too, but out of pain, rather than emotion. When using the word "push" the way I did, I meant that Yugi was giving birth to a baby. We didn't know whether it was a boy or a girl, but we would soon find out. I was holding onto Yugi's hand as he screamed, and the baby's legs started to come out of him.

"Ryou. Ryou, help me.", Yugi whispered.

I kissed the top of Yugi's hand, and the baby's feet came out. The baby had been born. Soon, we would find out the gender of our baby, whether it was within two hours or two days. As Yugi started to pass out from exhaustion, I kissed his forehead.

"Sweet dreams, Yugi," I said.

A nurse approached me. She gasped upon looking at me; Yugi was not the only pregnant one in our marriage. I was about seven or eight months pregnant at the time Yugi fell in labour with his children, so I was showing that there was a child inside of me, as well. She trusted a hand toward me, but did nothing.

"May I?", she asked.

I nodded. The baby kicked where she sat her hand on my stomach, and she giggled. She put the clipboard that she was holding over her mouth and nose so I wouldn't see her smile.

"Well, I came to give you the news on your husband, and your newborn baby," the nurse said, slowly moving the clipboard away from her face, and down to her side. "Your husband is absolutely fine, and he's sleeping now. Do you want to want to know the gender of your baby now, or do you want to wait for your husband to wake up?"

I replied that I wanted to wait for Yugi, so the nurse nodded, and stepped away. It scared me that she hadn't told me anything about the baby, other than offering to tell me its gender. Numerous kicks suddenly flung themselves at my stomach, and I decided to walk off into the elevator to go to the cafeteria. I was never going to feel the end of it if I didn't get something to eat.

* * *

A moderate meal is nothing to be ashamed of, but the cafeteria employees made it look that way. When I ordered a meal that cost about £3.50*, they shouted at me- shouted!- that there was a minimum charge of £5.00* that I had to pay. Jerks, they are! All I wanted was a drink (which cost £0.75* on its own) and an order of mozzarella sticks (cost: £2.75*), but they made me order french fries (costing £1.50*), which I ate anyway. It satisfied the baby, so I let it slide.

I'm rambling, aren't I? I'm sorry if I am, but it's a poor habit of mine that I can't seem to break. Anyway, let me get to the important reason I'm telling you about this entirely pricey visit to the hospital cafeteria.

Whilst grumbling to myself about the expensive cafeteria prices and the wankers of employees, the baby kicked me, hard. I dropped to my knees in pain. No one seemed to care about me; I just looked like a man pretending to be pregnant, and in need. It looked like I was just going to be a reject, until...

"Are you alright?" I saw a dark hand extend itself out to me.

"I'm fine," I said, taking the hand.

I looked up at the person who helped me up. She had the dark skin mentioned above, and long platinum blonde hair. Her nurse's uniform made her look skinnier than she actually was (I saw that she had tied the belt of her front waist apron so tight, it was practically suffocating her waist and abdomen), but she was still a beautiful woman.

"Thank you," I told her.

"I don't think we've formally met," she said. "I'm Corry Del Rae."

Her name honestly sounded like a cross between Corrine Bailey Rae and Lana Del Rey. "I'm Ryou Bakura," I said, shaking her hand.

She blushed slightly for some strange reason. "What's going on here?", she asked, pointing at my stomach. "You're normally really skinny."

I smiled. "Well, I'm expecting a baby. I'm only about a month or two away from giving birth, now."

Corry Del Rae smiled, and grabbed my hand. "Well, I actually came to get you because Yugi Bakura-Muto was awake, and he was asking for you. Of course, I told him he may have to undergo another surgery before you could see him. They should be wrapping up as we speak, so... how about we go?"

"Splendiferous," I said. Corry Del Rae smiled again.

* * *

On the way there, Corry Del Rae explained that he had started bleeding drastically shortly after he woke up merely seconds after giving birth. They had to operate on him to stop the bleeding, otherwise he would've died of blood loss. It was called some word I can't pronounce: a hysterectomy. This was the first **and last** child that Yugi would give birth to. I was still going to have my baby, though.

What I hadn't told anyone- including Yugi himself- was that I was actually undergoing my seventh pregnancy. All six children before that had experienced a fate worse than the normal death-after-birth. All six- all girls, actually- had been stillborn. The first one- stillborn. The second one- stillborn. Third- stillborn. Fourth, fifth, and sixth- stillborn, just the same. I was hoping that this pregnancy would turn out different, with one exception. I had a feeling that this seventh child was going to be a girl, just the other six children beforehand. And... I really wanted a girl; even if Yugi had given birth to one, himself. I wanted to have a girl badly. Horribly badly.

Corry Del Rae and I walked into an elevator. At this point, contractions had started going up my back, so I was in a hurry to get out of that elevator so I could get to Yugi before I broke down. Whenever I had contractions, my emotions got- for lack of better words- messed up. I would cry for no reason; I would laugh excessively for no reason; I would be yelling, grunting, and frustrated for no reason; sometimes I would even scream in fear of everything for (obviously) no reason. All that wild emotion would end as soon as my contractions subsided. I wanted them to subside in that elevator, or at least, before I got to Yugi.

Thank God, they did. Corry Del Rae took my hand as we walked out of the elevator, and into the hallway that would take us to Yugi's room. She cracked the door open, nodded at someone I couldn't see, and opened the door the rest of the way to let me in. I ran to Yugi, even though it was irritating the baby, and I kissed his cheeks and forehead.

"Are you alright?", I asked him.

He nodded, and we hugged.

"If you would like, we can tell you the gender of your baby, now.", Corry Del Rae told us.

We both nodded. "Yugi Bakura-Muto and Ryou Bakura-Muto, God has given to you a healthy son," she said, smiling wider than I had seen her smile before.

Yugi cheered, and I did the same. I hugged him tightly as we were handed our newborn son. "What do want to name him, Yugi?", I asked.

"What about... Julian? Julian Bakura-Muto.", Yugi said.

I nodded, and hugged him. I didn't notice (at the time) that his hand had drifted to my stomach so he could feel the baby. I just smiled, and continued to hug him.

* * *

1) £3.50= $3.92

£3.50= ¥434.51

£3.50= E£71.11

2) £5.00= $5.60

£5.00= ¥620.73

£5.00= E£101.58

3) £0.75= $0.84

£0.75= ¥93.11

£0.75= E£15.24

4) £2.75= $3.08

£2.75= ¥341.40

£2.75= E£55.92

5) £1.50= $1.68

£1.50= ¥186.22

£1.50= E£30.50

* * *

£= Euro (currency used in Britain)

$= Dollar (currency used in America)

¥= Yen (currency used in Japan)

E£= Egyptian Pound (currency used in Egypt)


	11. SlaveShipping

"I have somewhere to be," Pegasus said, standing up.

"But, Master Pegasus...!", Croquet yelled after him.

It didn't seem to bother Croquet that he saw that Pegasus had bandages wrapped all around his torso (from chest to waist), it only bothered him that Pegasus was headed somewhere when he had to monitor the rooms of the Industrial Illusions building, in order to make sure no one broke any rules.

"Master Pegasus, where are you going?!", Croquet yelled after him.

"Downstairs! I'll be back in an hour or so!", Pegasus answered.

* * *

He said "downstairs", but he meant "dungeon". If anyone knew what happened down there, Pegasus could've never gotten over the embarrassment. He had married Cecilia, a woman, and he was in love with a man. Not even a man, a boy. He was 36 years old; he shouldn't have had a crush on the fifteen-year-old boy who was obviously not of opposite gender. Was it wrong for a grown man to be in love with a young boy? Pegasus didn't know. Heck, he had only started the Duelist Kingdom tournament in order to gather the Millennium Items so he could resurrect his lost wife from the dead. Why was he so attracted to Mokuba? Was it because he needed someone to love until Cecilia came back to him? And, if Cecilia never came back to him, then he would be stuck like this forever; a paedophile who had no business being one.

Maybe he needed someone else to toy with; Yugi or Kaiba, maybe. No, that wouldn't work. Even if they were older, they were still sixteen years younger. Then again, it was better than Mokuba, who was twenty one years younger than Pegasus was. Maybe he needed to find someone closer to his age, and forget about Cecilia. No, he could never do that. He would never forgive himself, and she would never forgive him. Still, a twenty seven year-old woman was better to be attracted to than a sweet, innocent fifteen-year-old boy who had no business being a victim of Pegasus's fatally attracting love.

Oh, but Pegasus wanted to do that to poor Mokuba, even if it **was** a bad thing. Ever since he had bargained with Kaiba when he was eighteen, and Mokuba thirteen, Mokuba had been his, and no one- not even Kaiba himself- could tell him different. For starters, he had trapped Mokuba in the downstairs dungeon for a year. The speakers embedded in the walls spoke messages to him, day and night. All the time, while he ate, while he read, while he wrote, while he drew, while he thought, while he slept, while he woke, while he paced around the room; Mokuba would always hear messages that told him to listen to Pegasus, no matter what he did to him. Soon enough, he fell into a strange trance. Whenever he was being spoken to by Pegasus, he would respond with the answers that he just somehow knew that Pegasus would want to hear. If Pegasus wanted to know something that he already knew the answer to, and he asked it to Mokuba, he would be given the correct answer, or Pegasus's opinion, through Mokuba's mouth.

Then, Pegasus started to become sneaky. At night, he would creep out, and ask Mokuba to kiss him. Mokuba never said no; he **was** in the deep trance that made him do whatever Pegasus wanted. Therefore, whenever Pegasus asked Mokuba to do something he never would've done in his conscious or sane state, Mokuba would do the exact opposite thing that was in his morals. This trance was the whole reason that Mokuba gave away some very important things in his life: (practically) his soul, (practically) his life, his entire Duel Monsters deck that his brother had given him and meant the world to him... his virginity.

Pegasus was a mean, sneaky paedophile, that much could be said, and that proved it. The night before Mokuba's fifteenth birthday, he asked Mokuba to have sex with him. Mokuba, being under his "reverse-personality-trance", absentmindedly agreed. Pegasus, being the cruel man that he is, asked Mokuba to sexually abuse him in a subtle way. While it wasn't necessarily "sexual abuse", Mokuba took a pocket knife out of Pegasus's own pants, and slowly, yet violently, slashed him across his torso and back. Pegasus came upstairs and greeted Croquet like that, saying he had fallen on the slashing board in the dungeon's torture room (his excuse to **that** was that he was torturing Mokuba), and it had slashed him with the several knife and axe blades instead of its intended victim. Pegasus was immediately taken to the hospital, where he underwent a blood transfusion to replace the blood he lost in the "accident", and was bandaged from his chest to his waist.

And, that explains why Croquet wasn't fazed to see Pegasus in those bandages only seconds earlier.

Pegasus felt guilt every time he went down the stairs that led to the dungeon. Was he going to decide to practically torture Mokuba, or was he going to just ask for a little love? Pegasus never knew what he was going to do to his "prisoner" beforehand; he decided while he was stepping into Mokuba's cell, or he would just ask Mokuba to do the first thing that came to his mind when he sat down on Mokuba's bed. He wasn't very good at planning ahead when it came to that sort of thing, but he was better at planning when it came to other things. He had planned the Duelist Kingdom tournament when it came around. He just didn't need to and couldn't plan for something that could always be different and happened every day.

He stopped walking. Was he going to keep up this lie forever? No, he couldn't. Then again, he was different from Gozaburo Kaiba. As the man had always said, there was no such thing as bad publicity. But, there was to Pegasus, and if this got out, this would certainly become its own kind of bad publicity. He had to keep this secret. There was no way around it. Besides, he had kept it up for almost two years; who was going to tell him that he couldn't keep a secret for longer than two or three years, or should something awful would happen to him? Answer: no one.

He walked down the rest of the stairs, and opened the door to Mokuba's cell. "Hello, sweet Mokuba," Pegasus greeted his prisoner.

"Greetings, Master Pegasus," Mokuba said to him in exchange, his voice as monotone as it always was.

Pegasus thought for three seconds, at the most. "Mokuba, my dear, could you... kiss me?"

"Yes, Master Pegasus," Mokuba absentmindedly agreed.

Pegasus smiled as Mokuba walked toward him. _I would miss this if it went away_ , Pegasus thought.


	12. IrateShipping

Ryou poked Joey with a stick over and over, evidently unamused by the fact that he wasn't waking up. Upon seeing Marik walk through the door, he poked Joey even more with that stick, until Marik groaned slightly when he saw it.

"If you want him to wake up, you have to use the magic word," Marik said.

"What, 'please'?", Ryou asked.

"No, 'bacon'.", Marik corrected him.

Joey shot up out of the bed. "What about bacon?!"

"See?", Marik said to Ryou. "Now, get out of bed. We've got somewhere to be," he said to Joey.

* * *

"For the love of God," Joey complained, pulling a shirt on over his head, "we must really be headed somewhere if you're making me get dressed."

"Because you're going to end up drunk," Marik said. "We're headed to a party at Akefia's house."

"We're headed to Akefia's place? We're all dead meat. I'm gonna get drunk, Ryou's gonna get seduced, and you're going to end up showing off your bare chest. I suggest we stay here."

Marik trusted a piece of paper into Joey's hands. It read:

 **Come to Akefia's House Party, starting at 9:00am and ending at 10:00pm on Sunday the 6th! Also, if you have received this invitation by means of mailbox or E-Mail, it means you** **have** **to come, whether you like it or not.**

 **Yours, Thief King Akefia Bakura**

"So, we've got no choice," Marik told him.

"What happens if you don't go?", Joey asked.

"I don't know, and I don't want to find out today," Marik said, slipping his jacket on. "Now, come on, or we're gonna be late."

"What happens if we're late?", Joey asked.

"Fire," Marik said simply.

Joey shuddered, slipping his jacket on, as well.

* * *

"Welcome!", Akefia said, opening the door. "Did you receive your invitation by E-Mail, or by mail?"

"Mail, envelope included," Marik said, handing Akefia the invite.

Akefia nodded. "Okay, come in. Go on; help yourself to anything."

Marik, Ryou, and Joey walked in. The other guests- Yugi, Yami, Atem, Malik, Duke, and Serenity- were all talking, drinking punch, eating finger foods, and dancing to the music in the background. The song was Britney Spears' **Circus** , which was great to dance to if you did it right. The people dancing- Yami and Akefia himself- weren't doing it the right way, which made Marik twitch slightly.

He took a few steps forward, stepping onto the "dancefloor" that Yami and Akefia were on. He started dancing, using to tune as a model for his moves. Yami and Akefia stopped, and everyone else started watching, in awe. Akefia looked at the girl who was singing, and she changed the song suddenly. It was now Ellie Goulding's **Burn**.

"No one upstages me at my own party, Ishtar.", Akefia said, throwing off his robe to reveal that he was wearing a set of Bakura's clothes underneath. "Let's do this," Akefia said.

Akefia did his thing while Marik did his. Marik was clearly winning, much to Akefia's dismay. While the girl was singing the second chorus, Akefia glanced at her again. The song became **Just Dance** by Lady Gaga.

When Marik began to dance, he was already upstaging Akefia, and their audience made it clear. He was doing some weird skating thing during the chorus, and it was working effectively, especially when he did a triple axel in the air during the hook, and went back to doing the skating, then switching to weird different moves during the verses and bridge. Akefia screamed, and fiercely pointed at the karaoke girl. She started to sing Katy Perry's **This Is How We Do**.

Marik was still doing much better than Akefia, and the smile on his face showed it. Akefia was screaming on the inside, and showed a gigantic scowl on the outside.

"I may the King of Games, but Marik is the King of Dance!", Yami yelled in response to the dance battle he saw in front of him.

Akefia started to dance harder, and he was doing better. The only issue was that Marik was still doing better. Akefia smirked, and gave the girl a state. She started singing **Let Me Love You** by Justin Bieber.

Marik, despite trying to tone down what he was doing, was still upstaging Akefia. Akefia was ready to stab his guest, even though that wasn't very host-like. Akefia gave the girl another glare, and the song became **Middle** by DJ Snake. Marik kept trying, and he did it. Suddenly, Akefia came running at Marik, and pinned him to the wall. The karaoke girl stopped singing, and everyone turned to watch the scene.

"What did I tell you about upstaging me?!", he yelled, and punched Marik in the side.

"I didn't mean to," Marik said. "It just happened."

"Yeah, like you **just happened** to be a huge asshole," Akefia said, and threw Marik to the ground. "Now, how's about you leave, so I don't draw blood?"

"No! I came here to have fun! I came here to be with my friends! I'm not leaving!", Marik screamed.

"Oh, you want to stay with your friends, huh? Well, you can join 'em!", Akefia yelled, and slid Marik across the room with his foot, making him crash into Joey and Ryou. The two latter fell down by Marik crashing into them, and their feet ended up landing hardly on Marik's stomach and oesophagus.

"Ow," Marik groaned.

"Do me a favour and leave my party, bitch!", Akefia yelled, kicking Marik in the groin.

"Douchebag," Marik said, groaning.

Akefia kicked his face. "This is what you get for messing with the King of Thieves."

"Leave Marik alone!"

"Joey."

"And just what are you gonna do about it, you bastard?", Akefia asked.

Joey and Marik both balled their hands up into fists, but Joey threw a punch at Akefia's face. It hit, and Akefia fell onto the floor, head-first, and he sat up with a bleeding nose.

"You're gonna pay for that!", Akefia yelled, sitting up and running back at Joey.

 _This is gonna hurt_ , Joey thought.

* * *

Marik smiled, trying to hide his bandaged arm from Joey as the latter walked through the door. Both Marik and Ryou gasped upon seeing him; he was using crutches to walk, as one of his feet had been broken in the conflict. He had a big bruise on the side of his face, and his left eye was now a black eye.

"Joey...", Marik whispered, running his hand down the side of Joey's face without any visible injury.

Joey used a hand to move Marik's hand back to his side. Marik brought his arm into view; if Joey wasn't afraid to show any of his injuries, Marik shouldn't have been, either.

"I'm sorry about everything.", Marik apologised.

Joey put a hand on Marik's shoulder, and shook his head. He put his hand back on his crutch, and limped over to the couch. He sat, there, and Marik walked over to him.

"Hey," Marik said, putting his good hand on Joey's thigh. "Is there a reason you're giving me the silent treatment?", he asked.

Joey reached into his pocket, and pulled out a velvet covered box. He opened it, to reveal a silver ring inside with a turquoise in the centre- Marik's birthstone.

"Marik Ishtar, it was yesterday I realised how much I care about you, and how much you matter to me. So, I ask of you... will you marry me?"

Marik extended his hand out, and Joey slipped the engagement ring onto his ring finger. "A perfect fit," Joey said, turning and twisting Marik's hand around to take a look at it.

"I'll never leave you," Joey said.

"I'll never leave you, either," Marik said.


	13. ShrimpShipping

I never really wanted to call him, but it felt better knowing that I could reach out to him when he needed it. I dialed his number- (222)-372-3923.

It took a few beeps, but he answered. "Hello?"

"Hey, Weevil. It's Rex."

"What did I tell you about calling me on weekends, Rex Raptor?"

"I'm sorry, it's just... I was getting worried. You didn't call me."

He had a rule. I couldn't call him on the weekends- he had to call me first.

"Rex..."

"Weevil, come home. I miss you."

"I can't come home that easily. I'm at a tournament in another country; you know that."

"Why'd you leave me? Couldn't you have brought me with you? Besides, I was invited to that tournament, too. It's not fair that you should go, and not me when we **both** had an invite."

"Rex, you were sick. You're **still** sick. You needed, and still need, to stay home."

"Weevil..."

"Listen, I have to leave for the tournament in a few minutes. I need to get dressed and prepare my deck. Goodbye, Rex."

"Weevil, wait! Weevil...!"

He had hung up. I dropped the phone, and fell onto my knees. I started to drown in my own tears.

* * *

Two days had passed. It was Monday. Weevil was going to be coming home. I was so overjoyed, I forgot to take my morning medicine. I was doing my hair for hours, and I decided to take off my nightclothes and put on some decent clothes instead. I went over to the phone, and dialed (222)-372-3923.

"Hello?"

"Weevil? Is that you?"

"Yes, Rex. But... I have some bad news for you."

"What?"

"My flight was delayed. I'm not going to be there until Wednesday afternoon."

"Weevil, you've got to be joking. You can't be serious."

Weevil didn't speak for a few seconds. Then, he said: "Listen, Rex, I've got to hang up."

"Weevil, no. Please, keep talking. If I'm not going to see you for two whole days, I want to keep talking to you. Please. Please, Weevil."

"Rex..."

"Weevil, please! Stay on the phone!"

"Rex, I can't!"

"Weevil, just talk to me! Please! I can't stand to be without you any longer than I have! I at least want to hear your voice and know you're okay!"

"Goodbye, Rex."

"Weevil! Weevil, no! Weevil!" He hung up.

I couldn't believe it. He wasn't going to be back until Wednesday afternoon, and it was Monday morning. I was separated from him for two days longer, and he had already been gone for three weeks. I couldn't be with Weevil for over two more days, and he had still been gone for three weeks before that. Weevil...

* * *

I woke up, unable to breathe. I was congested, and my throat was so sore that I couldn't breathe through my mouth. Was this it? Was this the end of Rex Raptor? Suddenly, I felt someone stuff my inhaler in my mouth, and put a tissue over my nose.

"Blow out, then breathe in." I recognized that voice. It was Weevil's next-door neighbour, Joey Wheeler (Weevil let me stay in his apartment until he came back).

I did as Joey asked, blowing my nose as he held the tissue over it, and breathing in after a few seconds of blowing out. After I could breathe like normal again, Joey pulled the tissue away from my face, and sat my inhaler on my bedside table.

I opened my mouth to speak, but he put a finger to my- my!- lips. "Save your energy," he told me, putting a box of tissues behind my inhaler. "I could hear you gasping for air through the walls, and I decided to investigate. When I found you like this, I panicked, and got your medical things so you could breathe."

I nodded. It was my way of saying "thank you" while I was in a condition where I couldn't speak. Suddenly, I felt something soft and fluffy land on my lap. "A teddy bear I found on the floor when I walked in. I decided to leave it until you could breathe, so you could have it if you wanted it.", Joey said.

I nodded again. In all honesty, the teddy bear was Weevil's, but I wanted to cuddle it, like I had seen Weevil do so many times in the past. I would come over to his apartment at night just to watch him sleep, like some kind of a weirdo. Then again, if you were in love, it was a perfectly normal thing; watching your love interest sleep. It was worth travelling so far to be with him all night and morning.

"Do you want me to stay here to help you?"

 _"Weevil, please! Stay on the phone!"_

 _"Rex, I can't!"_

 _"Weevil, just talk to me! Please! I can't stand to be without you any longer than I have! I at least want to hear your voice and know you're okay!"_

 _"Goodbye, Rex."_

 _"Weevil! Weevil, no! Weevil!"_

I shook my head vigorously. It was an obvious way of saying 'no' to him. "Well, goodbye, Rex."

 _"Goodbye, Rex."_

 _"Weevil! Weevil, no! Weevil!"_

I waved goodbye. It was easier to say goodbye to Joey than Weevil. I dozed off.

* * *

I woke up again. I looked at my watch, which I almost never take off. It said it was Wednesday morning. I had been so sick, I slept for a whole day. And it was 11:24. Weevil was going to be back soon. I cheered on the inside, but my throat was still in an awful condition, so I couldn't actually cheer. That was when I heard a knock on the door. I answered.

"Weevil!", I cheered, my voice hoarse and quiet.

I ran into him, and hugged him tightly. He started stroking my hair. "Rex."

"I missed you," I said.

"I missed you, too.", he answered. He kissed my forehead. "You sound sick, still. Why don't you get some rest?"

I nodded. He helped me to my feet, and laid me in his bed. "You know, you could always sell your house and move into my apartment, here. I want you to be with me."

"I want to be with you, too," I whispered, putting my hand into his.

He nodded. "I'll help you move your things into this apartment, alright? Then we can finally..." He leaned in closer to me, "be together." He kissed me, mouth-to-mouth.

"Uh, Weevil? Kissing me was not the smartest thing to do, you're gonna..."

He took in a deep breath, and fell over. "...catch my strep throat.", I groaned, facepalming.


	14. MonarchShipping

**You and me, we used to be together...**

Yami felt himself wake up. He didn't open his eyes, though. He wanted to know if he was going to pick up life where he left off.

The life where he would wake up next to Atem, still holding his hand with an arm around him. He would smell Yugi cooking breakfast downstairs, and he would get up to go downstairs, but not without kissing Atem goodbye first. He would then slowly let his grip out of Atem's, and walk away.

As he came to the last step, he would see Yugi, setting a plate of whatever would be for breakfast that morning on the table, with a glass of tea, milk, or orange juice (whatever went with the meal) next to it. Yugi would glance back at Yami, and tell him to go upstairs, to get Atem for breakfast. Yami would eagerly nod his head, and run upstairs. He would smile upon seeing Atem already awake, waiting for him, standing up and going to kiss him.

He was ready. Was this the reality he was going to wake up to, this morning?

He sat up, keeping his eyes closed. Then, he slowly opened his eyes. He looked around. The same concrete floor. The same little windows near the ceiling that had metal bars instead of glass and a screen. The same bunk bed that looked like it was going to fall apart at any moment. The same orange jumpsuit with the nametag reading **P#06041982**. The same jail cell he had woken up in for a year, now.

He wasn't going to go back. At least, not soon.

 **Every day, together. Always...**

"Atem. Atem."

Yami looked at his bedmate, somewhat upset that he wouldn't wake up. He was trying to spare him a terrible fate from the penitentiary guardian by waking him up.

"Atem, please. Wake up, Atem."

He watched Atem roll over. Yami frowned upon seeing the scar that ran down the side of Atem's face- he had received it from an incident of not being awake by nine o'clock- and he found himself reading Atem's nametag. **P#19274263**. He knew the number now. 19274263. It was so easy for him to remember, now, and it was just a jumble of numbers. The number was important to him, though- it was the prisoner number of Atem.

Yami gasped. He was wasting time. "Atem! Atem, get up!"

"You're never going to wake him up. The penitentiary guardian will, though. With a good bruise on his ass."

"Shut up, Bakura. What would you know?"

"I've seen enough in my time. Akefia has, too. How do you think he got this," he drew a line from the bottom of his right eye down to his chin with his finger, "right here?"

Yami knew he had that scar, too. It was just on the opposite side of his face. He was just trying to hide it. That's why he always faced Yami and Atem from the other side; so he didn't show them that he had, too, received punishment for sleeping in on at least one occasion.

"From being a total douchebag," Yami answered.

Bakura chuckled. "No, not a douche. An asshole."

"Agreed." Yami looked back at Atem. "Atem! Wake up! Atem!"

Yami gasped, seeing the penitentiary guardian start to walk up. Duke Devlin was awake. Seto Kaiba, Bakura, Akefia, Malik, all of them. And they all had that scar running down the side of their face. Was Yami the only one who woke up on time, every time?

"Atem! Atem!"

The penitentiary guardian walked over to their cell. Yami turned, and faced the penitentiary guardian so he could see his face.

"19274263! Get your lazy ass out of bed, now!"

Atem didn't move a muscle. Bakura, Akefia, Malik, Kaiba, and Duke all gasped seeing it; they knew Atem was going to be getting another mark today.

"19274263! Wake up, schmuck!"

Atem still didn't move. "Allow me, General."

All the other prisoners looked in amazement. He was the prisoner who had been there the longest, and the only man who had gotten every scar that was possible to receive. His face was so distorted, he wore a mask made of pure steel of over it. He wore leather gloves over his hands, and was the only prisoner permitted to wear shoes. His voice was so gravelly, no one knew exactly what he actually sounded like. Now, they just punished him with a good spanking. Still, he was strong, and even the guards and guardian respected him.

"Prisoner 19274263! Get up now, or I'll have you whipped like you've never even seen a rope in your life!"

Atem still wasn't waking up. "General, spanking."

"Yes, sir."

The general opened their cell. He went over to Atem, and started to drag him off by his hair. Atem finally awoke, screaming in pain, but it was too late. He was going to get the beating of a lifetime. As the general left, he locked the door back, leaving Yami in his cell, alone. Every other one of the prisoners was still sulking in their cell, but Bakura and Akefia were right in front of the bars, like Yami was.

"Why aren't you sulking?", Yami asked them.

Bakura answered him. "We have no good reason to be here, but we enjoy prison, like some kind of weirdos. And... we also have each other to keep us company. I'm sorry to say it- not- but you've just lost Atem forever."

"That's not true!"

"It's about as true as the fact that we're wearing orange jumpsuits, Yami Yugi! We lost Ryou this way! Malik lost Marik that way! Kaiba lost Mokuba that way, and Duke lost Tristan this way! Just face it; we're never getting out of here, and they're just going to kill us all this way! How many of you all want to bet they're just throwing them into the furnace and burning them to death?!"

Kaiba, Malik, Duke, and the some of the newer prisoners, Jaden, Syrus, Chazz, Jesse, and Zane, all raised their hands. It seemed like no one saw any hope for the prisoners that we're going back for punishment and never coming back; they were just disappearing, and no one could come up with any other solution other than that they were dead.

"There's always hope, Bakura. You know that."

"I lost hope when they took Ryou back there."

Bakura stepped back into the confined shadows of his prison cell, and Akefia followed him. Everyone else was out of view, just the same, but Yami could hear the insane amounts of sobbing coming from their cells. It seemed like the only people not sobbing were Bakura and Akefia- they were always labelled emotionless- and himself.

"Atem. Don't worry. Yami's still here. He's still here. I promise you. Hold on, honey. Please. Hold on."

 **I really feel, that I'm losing my best friend...**

"Atem? Are you alright?"

Yami gasped. Atem was topless, because there were marks all over his chest and back that were bleeding heavily, and needed bandaged. Of course, Yami couldn't do anything about it but sit back and watch him bleed to death.

"I never want to see a rope in my life, ever again.", Atem whispered.

"I don't blame you, honey. You're... a mess."

"Is what they said true? Did they really kill Mokuba, Marik, Ryou, Tristan, and Yugi?"

Yami sighed. He **did** know what that pain felt like. They had lost Yugi a couple months ago; he claimed of sharp pain in his stomach and throat, and when they came to take him to the infirmary, he never came back. The guards, and even the guardian, never told them he was dead, or of what cause. All they knew is that he was dead, because he had been supposedly 'ill' for almost four months.

Yami knew he had lost his Hikari. He wasn't about to lose his spirit.

"Atem. You're bleeding, too much for me to handle. Here."

He reached under the bed, grabbing scissors and bandages. He started to wrap them around Atem's torso and some areas of his arms, until the medical tape he pulled out of his pocket and cut came into play. Once he put the top of the jumpsuit back onto Atem, he looked good as new. He leaned forward, and kissed Atem's forehead.

"You go rest. I'll stay here."

Atem nodded, and crawled over to the bunk bed, laying down on the bottom bunk, and pulling the covers over his body and head. Yami smiled, as he heard the rusty gate open.

"Gym time," Bakura said, grabbing the teen's hand.

 **I can't believe this could be the end...**

Yami watched in amazement at what some of the other prisoners could do. Malik could still lift weights like it was no one else's business, and Akefia could still use grips and do hurried sit-ups simultaneously. Duke was still light on his feet. And Bakura...

Well, he could've been a gymnast, had he wanted to be.

"What do you think, Pharaoh? Sixth place, at most?"

Bakura had his legs split in a... well, split, hanging each foot on a ring hanging from the ceiling. He looked very graceful in this position, and it didn't seem to be causing him much pain. Yami applauded loudly.

"Wonderful!", he shouted.

Both boys expected at least one other person in the gym to turn their heads and look, but it was just the two of them. Bakura slowly brought his legs closer together, his feet still in the rings, then he jumped from the air, doing a quadruple somersault, and landing gracefully on his feet.

"First place, platinum medal," Yami said, high-fiving Bakura as he held his hand up for one.

"What can you do?", Bakura asked him.

Yami sighed. The only thing he was skilled in was card games; he wasn't that much of a gymnast, or an athlete of any kind. Bakura looked at him, smiled, and wrapped an arm around him.

"Can't do much, huh? Ryou was the same way. He just found it easy to lie around and do nothing."

"It seems like you enjoy talking to me," Yami said, trying to change the subject.

Bakura chuckled. "Love it. You're more fun to talk to than Akefia, probably because he's always going on about how he would've killed Atem, had things gone differently."

"Have you heard him talk in his sleep?", Yami asked, giggling slightly.

Bakura started to laugh loudly. "Yes! It's crazy, isn't it?!"

"Yes!"

Both boys started to laugh their butts off, when they both suddenly felt a cold hand on their shoulder.

"What would you happen to be talking about, Yami Yugi and Yami Bakura?", the Iron-Masked Prisoner asked.

"Something funny to us, sir," Yami explained, gripping onto Bakura's hand.

The Iron-Masked Prisoner nodded, and walked away. Yami started to grip onto Bakura's hand tighter. "Watch your grip!"

"Sorry."

Bakura smiled. "It's alright. What do you say we go back to the cells; hang out a little?"

Yami nodded, and held onto Bakura's hand as they walked out of the gym together.

 **It looks as though you're letting go...**

Atem sighed, and sat up. Gym time was still going on, and everyone had left. Maybe he could stop at the prison cafeteria and get a bite to eat before anyone noticed...

"...and that's why I haven't touched a pole since."

"You're crazy, Yami Bakura."

"No, you're crazy!"

Atem heard a thud, and he leaned over a little to see what was going on in the hallway. He saw Yami Bakura- from the cell across the hall- underneath Yami- his spirit- and they were **kissing**.

Atem pulled himself back into the cage, unsure of what to think. His spirit was kissing the spirit of Thief King Bakura. Atem had reverted back to his seven-year-old state; he couldn't take heartbreak. He was only seven! He was stuck in prison, but this made it ten times worse.

His own romantic interest was kissing another person! A man! It just made Atem cry even more, knowing that he was gay, and he was in love with a guy he thought was straight, only to find out that he was gay, too. He could've had a chance with him! Now... it was gone.

~CRACK!~

"Bakura!"

"Yami!"

Atem watched as they gripped onto each other for comfort, running into the **Bakura cell** for shelter. The Bakura cell? The Bakura cell?! Bakura could've gone to the cell he came from, and Yami could've come 'home'! Yami was rejecting Atem! Rejecting! He knew it! He loved him! He was...!

"Yami!"

Yami reached forward, grabbing Atem's sides and dragging him forward. He held Atem in his arms, cradling him and loving him as much as he could. "I'm sorry, Atem. We should've run into our cell, not his."

"My bad," Bakura apologized

Atem was suddenly taller, and his voice became deeper. Yami's love was bringing him back where he needed to be. "Well, just take the lives of others into consideration when in danger."

Bakura and Yami both nodded. "Come on, Atem. Let's go back."

Atem shortened again as he stood up, and his voice went up a few octaves, as well. "Okay, Yami."

Yami picked him up like he was small, and carried him into the Muto cell. He laid him on the bottom bunk, and covered him up, leaving a kiss on his forehead before he started to climb up the ladder to the top bunk.

"Yami?"

Yami smiled. "Yeah, Atem?"

"I'm sorry. I caused the earthquake, just now."

Yami sighed. "What did I tell you about letting your powers get out of hand? Conceal..."

"Don't feel. Don't let it show."

Yami nodded, although Atem couldn't see it. "That's right. Remember that, okay? At least you cause natural disasters based on what's around you; we'd have big problems if you didn't."

"I'm sorry, Yami," Atem repeated.

"Don't apologise. Just... keep it under control, please."

Atem nodded. "Yes, Yami." He pulled the covers over his head, and dozed off.

 **And, if it's real, then I don't want to know...**

"We need to get out of here," Yami blurted out.

Atem gasped. "Why?"

"I can't stand this any longer. Even if all of our friends are here, I'd feel better knowing I can sleep at night."

"How do we get out? We're on constant watch!", Atem pointed out.

"Night," Yami said simply.

"Night? No, too dangerous," Atem decided.

"Pharaoh Atem of Egypt, you're in jail, and I'm trying to get you out! I think it's worth the risk!"

"I don't want to die!"

Yami sighed, and hugged his lover. "Neither do I, Atem. Sorry for lashing out at you. It's just... I swore that I was going to protect you until my death, and that I wasn't going to die after you did."

"You can't promise that."

He hugged Atem tighter. "I can try."

Atem nodded, and wrapped his arms around his lover.

 **Don't speak! I know just what you're sayin'...**

Yami carefully bent the bars of his prison cell. There was a hole big enough for Atem to climb out, but...

Yami couldn't make it.

"Yami. That hole's too small for you."

Yami sighed. "I know. You're going to have to go it alone."

"No, I'm not leaving you behind!"

Atem grabbed the prison bar on the right, and started pulling, but he lost his grip, and fell back onto his bottom. He tried again, and this time, Yami helped him. The bar bent a little. A little more. More. There. Now, they could both escape.

Atem yawned, and rubbed his eyes. "Yami, I'm tired."

Yami groaned. "No, not now. No. Atem."

He held Atem in his arms as he fell asleep. He sighed, and put Atem onto his back, in an attempt to keep Atem with him until either the end of journey or until he woke up. He carefully stepped out, and began to walk down the dark hallway, seemingly alone.

 _Ooh._

What.

 _Ooh._

Singing? No, humming. Coming from Malik's cell.

 _Ooh, ooh._

Kaiba and Duke had begun to join in. _Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh ooh._

He recognized that tune. He glanced back. Bakura and Akefia were humming it, too, standing against the bars to show the scarred side of their face. Everyone was. Yami realized it now. They considered the scar that ran down the side of their face a symbol of freedom. They were showing Yami and Atem that they believed in them by showing them symbols for freedom.

And Yami wasn't about to give up.

He kept walking, slowly, so as to not wake up Atem. The humming kept going behind and around him.

 _Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh._

There was still humming going on in the background as Yami heard vocalization of the song that was being hummed across the whole prison building.

 _Are you, are you, coming to the tree? Where they strung up a man, they say who murdered three. Strange things did happen here, no stranger would it be if they met at midnight, in the Hanging Tree..._

Bakura. Bakura had planned this.

"Bakura, why did you do this? Come on, let me help you out of here." He began to bend the bars, but Bakura picked up his hand and threw it back to his side.

"You need to get him safe. You need to be safe. I'm sorry, Yami." Bakura began to tear up. "Goodbye."

He walked back into the shadows he called home. Then, Akefia. Then Malik. Kaiba. Duke. Jaden and Syrus, and Chazz and Jesse and Zane. But, he could still hear a faint chanting.

 _Yami. Yami! Yami! Yami!_

It was still quiet, but they seemed really energetic about cheering his name. Yami took a few steps forward out of the hallway, and ran to the right.

 **So, please stop explainin'...**

Yami sighed. He had made it out, and Atem hadn't gotten hurt at all. Yami wished he could say the same for himself, but there was no time to worry about that. They needed to get home to everyone who was still there, and tell them they were okay. But, there was one thing he knew.

Prison was one of the many challenges life had to offer for him and Atem, and there would be many more to come. But, no matter what life threw at their faces, they would always be up to face the challenge.

And they would face it together.


End file.
